


Message for you

by NH_Girl_2407 (Corona_2407)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, F/M, Feelings, Friendship, Love, Romance, Sad, Secret Messages, cellphone, dramione - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-15 14:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17530331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corona_2407/pseuds/NH_Girl_2407
Summary: After years, Hermione and Draco meet again. . . by chance. And the blame lies with the new media - what would the world be without cell phones?Short story in four chapters. I wrote this story after I watched a movie with similar content, because I felt inspired.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter world, which is trademarked by J. K. Rowling.The story I tell here is my own invention, and it is not purported or believed to be part of J.K. Rowling's story canon. This story is for entertainment only and is not part of the official story line. I thank J.K. Rowling for writing my always favorite books. Without those, my stories would not exist.
> 
> This is another one of my translations into English. My first language is German. So please keep that in mind while reading and be nice :) Thanks

 

 

 

A Muggle proverb said, that if life gave you lemon, you should get salt and tequila. But what if you didn't like tequila at all? And what if life planted a crappy lemon tree right in front of your nose? Should one then become a lemon trader? Or maybe you'd rather be an alcoholic? And what if you really liked lemons? Would that wisdom be invalid then? Hermione didn't know. What she did know, however, was that she couldn't deal with the damned lemons, that life had laughingly thrown her to her feet.

It had been two years now. . . two damn years and it didn't even feel, as if the pain had become less or maybe even more bearable. On the contrary. Every time she allowed herself to think about it, ice-cold claws grabbed her heart - or what was left of it - and silently plunged it into the abyss. Two years in which Ron was no longer with her. He had simply been taken away from her and with him, all her shared dreams and hopes for the future. She often thought about what would have happened, if Ron hadn't done Auror training with Harry. If he hadn't been called to this raid on that one fateful day and if he  had. . . well – not died. And she wouldn't have to mess with the lemons right now.

She cursed the day, fate had destroyed her life, but at least she could cling to the thought that he had been happy. They had been happy. Together. In their small apartment in Diagon Alley, about to marry and perhaps - yes, quite perhaps - they would have had children. Hermione liked to think, there were two of them. A girl and a boy, maybe. Possibly also two girls. . .

Here she was sitting, in her new apartment, which she lived in together with Luna Lovegood and had been staring at the box in front of her nose for hours. She just couldn't manage to open that damn box. Her hands trembled and Hermione could feel her throbbing heart pounding wildly against her chest.  
“Do you want to watch the box for a while, or should we open it now?", Luna suddenly wanted to know while the blonde sat almost noiseless next to her and handed her a can of Muggle coke.

“I. . . don't know", Hermione shook her head. She couldn't think clearly. She knew, she had to finish being sad, but why was that so damn hard? Even though it was generally claimed, that time heals all wounds, she was not at all convinced that time would do anything except work against her. Or she just needed more time? But how much time was appropriate, for getting over the death of his fiancé? Was there a rule for this? Any benchmark? Hermione strongly doubted that, but Luna had not been the first to tell her, she needed to start living again. But she had been the only one, who hadn't made Hermione feel like she was being smiled at pitifully by her. Even Harry had given her the feeling, that his patience was at an end when it came to her period of mourning. However, Harry also had Ginny and the two had been able to catch each other after Ron's death. Hermione, on the other hand, was still falling. She knew that one day, she would have to go back to life, but she had not yet defined for herself when ‘one day' would be exactly.

“I think Ronald would want you to let him go. And I think today is a good day! Look, there's no sunshine out there, which means the Wrackspurts are less active and can't fog up your brain. So you can concentrate fully on what you're doing.” Despite the fact that she was anything but in the mood, Hermione had to laugh at Luna’s statement. It was good for her to live with the former Ravenclaw. Luna had invited her to stay with her without asking too many questions, and she had quickly taken her former classmate and her brightly colored apartment with all the incense sticks into her heart. She even liked the dream catcher, that Luna herself had installed over Hermiones bed. And Luna gave her every freedom she could only wish for. She quickly noticed, when Hermione didn't feel like company and left her alone, but seemed to have some sort of sensor for, when Hermione needed distraction. And today, Luna had encouraged her to finally pull this miserable box out of the depths of their closet, in front of which they were sitting on the floor in Hermiones bedroom. She breathed deeply and reached for the lid of the brown cardboard box with trembling fingers, but just a few seconds later she would have preferred to put it back over the rest and kick this damned time capsule back into her closet.

The first thing she saw, was the tip of a brown wool sweater. The one with the orange ‘R’ on it, which Ron gets every year from Molly for Christmas and about which he had complained regularly. Nevertheless, he had always worn it and Hermione remembered, how she had fallen asleep, snuggled up to him on her last Christmas together. She hadn't even pulled the sweater completely out of the box yet, when she felt tears rolling down her cheeks and her heart split into a thousand small pieces, that no one would ever be able to put together again. As much as she tried to keep her emotions under control, she didn't want to succeed. Accompanied by a soft sob, she pressed the sweater onto her face, only to find out that Ron's smell was gone. Only when she picked up her courage again, Hermione managed to put the sweater aside and take another look in the box.  Meanwhile Luna nodded encouragingly and squinted curiously into the box, in which various pictures, an auror badge, the Deluminator Ron had been bequeathed by Dumbledore, as well as the Muggle-cell phone, which Hermine had given him only a few months before his death, piled up.

“What’s that?", Luna wanted to know as Hermione smilingly pulled the little cell phone out of the box. How much time had passed, before Ron understood the purpose of a cell phone?

“This is a cell phone. That keeps the Muggles in touch. It's actually like a normal phone, but you can also send messages, similar to the Patronus spell, except that the transmission isn't quite as conspicuous, as when a Patronus suddenly stands in front of you", she explained to her friend and her fingers gently slid over the small buttons of the switched off device. It had been good, that she had given Ron a cell phone, because it had not only happened once, that he had had to stay longer in the ministry and quickly he had learned to appreciate the benefits of text messaging. Most of the time Hermione had received a “Runngn late – Ilo vey ou” - his hands had simply been too big for the tiny buttons. A bittersweet pain spread through her chest, remembering the many little messages she had often received from him - just like that throughout the day - and which she herself hadn't been able to answer every time due to lack of time.

Sighing, she put the phone back into the box and together with Luna, she actually managed to gradually look through the entire contents and even burst into tears only two more times. Half an hour later, she closed the box again, but she didn't know what to feel. The numb feeling was still there, though she had talked herself into it so firmly, that it would get better after facing the past. But no. It was just as painful as before and a desperate laugh fought its way through her throat and merged seamlessly into a strangled sob. Why couldn't she just finish it? She knew it was time. Hermione was aware, that she was finally going to have to live again, but how could she do that?

“You don't look like you're feeling any better", Luna once again bluntly honestly squeezed things to the point and Hermione just nodded. But her friend didn't let herself get discouraged so quickly.

“Maybe you should talk to him? In the beginning, I talked a lot with my mother and that helped me a lot. You know, just because he's no longer alive, doesn't mean he can't take part in your life anymore.”

Luna's words kept Hermione busy the whole afternoon, and even in the evening, when she had made herself comfortable with a glass of wine in her bed with a book, her entire thoughts turned to her friend's statement. Sighing, she put her book on the small bedside table and reached for her own cell phone. She didn't know why she still had it, she didn't actually need a cell phone. Okay, every now and then she wrote with her parents or with Susan, whom she had met at the Muggle Library, but otherwise her friends didn't own their own cell phones. Hermione didn't know why she did it and she didn't really want to analyze it later, but Luna's words had triggered something in her. What exactly that was, she did not know with complete certainty, but she secretly agreed with her friend. Why shouldn't Ron be a part of her life anymore, just because he was dead? Everything suddenly seemed so much clearer than before, and with a beating heart, Hermione opened her messages and the conversation with Ron. Even two years later, she had not been able to delete all his messages.

_See you later. . ._

Those were the last words she had received from him, and a soft smile was playing around the corners of her mouth as she read the message. Quickly she took another sip of her wine, because she was not sure if she would survive this soberly. In general she was not sure, if she would survive the whole thing, but drunk she probably still had the best possible chance.

 _I miss you. . ._ , she typed the words, but immediately deleted them again. It wasn't enough. _Ron, I hope you're all right where you are. . ._ What? No, bullshit. Another sip of wine. Hermione took a deep breath. She wanted to write to him. She HAD TO write to him and he needed to know, that she was lost without him and that she couldn't just go on without him. So she typed word by word, deleted something here and there until she finally pressed “send” and breathed a sigh of relief. Luna was right. Why shouldn't he continue to be a part of her life? Carefully she ran her fingertips over the display of the cell phone and put it in the drawer of her nightstand. For the first time in a long while, she finally fell asleep again with a smile on her face.

 

«««

 

“Bethany, I told you I can't do anything with this stuff. There is a reason, why the last one has been lost", he groaned, as his faithful soul of a secretary came around the corner with a new model of this Muggle invention. He liked his job and he did it extraordinarily well, at least that's what his monthly paycheck said, even though he didn't actually need it, but he would never get used to all this stuff. Only with great difficulty, he had managed to understand the program, with which he had to work on the computer from time to time. Strange, considering that he made quite good with his video games at home.

“Well, you won't get around it, after all it was YOU, who decided to transfer part of the production to the Muggle world, right? And the Muggles aren't as pleased with the owl dung in the living room", Bethany laughed and immediately set out to take the small mobile phone out of the shiny box and fiddling around with it, presumably to get it ready for use. He sighed theatrically and put his head in his hands, while he decided it was time for a coffee. Which he would have to fetch himself, since his secretary was busy with the devil’s thing, as he secretly called it. He had simply _lost_ the last one on his way home, which meant, that he had sunk it into the Thames. From the middle of London Bridge. He had been so annoyed by the constant messages and by the fact, that the thing had always scared him to death when it had just started ringing on all impossible occasions. One of his business partners had even managed to bother him during a somewhat, well - _precarious_ situation with the blonde girl he had met at the Onyx, a trendy London scene bar.

“I need a cup of coffee first. It's just past nine and the day is already fucked up”, he said painfully, as he got up from his chair and walked towards the little kitchenette, where, hopefully, the awaited caffeine was waiting for him.

“Mine with milk and a piece of sugar, please! Thank you, Mr Malfoy!", Draco had to laugh as he shook his head, digging for his favorite cup. The one with the London Eye and the red Big Bus on it. Bethany was lucky he liked her so much. Of course, she didn't know, that this was almost a privilege. He was lucky, that his reputation hadn't hastened to this point when he applied for the job. Draco had never actually intended to enter the real estate industry, but, amazingly enough, that was just the job that filled him and made him happy. He had become so successful within a very short time, that he had been promoted by his boss, received a salary increase and had his own office, and now, after only five years here in the company, he was already the deputy managing director.

Whatever his reason for making many decisions on his own, and right now when he saw his secretary with the Muggle device in his hand, beaming at him happily when he returned with the coffee, he regretted that he had decided to go for any printed matter like business cards, flyers, giveaways and brochures to look for partner companies in the Muggle world.

Not only was it incredibly annoying, to modify their memory every time after an order (illegitimate, of course), no, this cell phone thing bothered him as well. Unfortunately, there was no useful, coparable counterpart in terms of printing and advertising matters, which corresponded to his claims.

“Thank you,", Bethany grinned at him as he handed her the mug with the hot coffee and she pressed the cell phone into his hand, whose display was already glowing, and Draco looked at it critically with pinched eyebrows.

“That looks different than the last one. It's kind of smaller", he noted and looked at it from all sides.

“Well, these things just keep evolving", Bethany shrugged her shoulders. “By the way, I've already sent your new number to Mr White, you know, he wanted to get in touch about the layout for the October flyer.” Draco moaned but nodded curtly, wondering at the same time, when his secretary would finally be able to call him by his first name. He'd certainly offered it to her a hundred times before, but somehow it did’nt want to go into her head. It did not bother him, but it was amusing.

In the meantime, Bethany had gone back to her place again and Draco wanted to get back to work as well and just let the cell phone disappear into the drawer of his dark secretary without any comment, when the stupid thing buzzed off and he made his face look like a suffering grimace. If that was White, trying to piss him off early Monday morning, he'd throw up. However, he quickly realized that this could not be White at all, when he clicked on the small letter symbol with the flashing number “2”. Frowning, he stared at the display and if the morning could become even more dubious, then this had probably just happened at the moment.

“Bethany?”, he shouted and, as always, didn't have to wait long until she came around the corner with a staggering.

“Yes, Mr Malfoy?"

“Very funny", Draco said dryly and raised the mobile phone in front of her nose, but the blonde-haired secretary obviously didn't know what he meant. More specifically, then. “Was that you or maybe Mike from the accounting department? This looks to me like a revenge for the last two Fridays, I’ve let you work on longer.” Obviously she still didn't understand and Draco suddenly wasn't so sure about his assumption, that his coworkers wanted to fool him. Bethany picked up the phone and her eyes widened in surprise.

“No, I swear we had nothing to do with that. That's. . . very sad", she concluded, handing him back the device. “Whoever wrote this. . . certainly not one of us. Probably just someone entered the wrong number? I mean, the number here is new and was not activated until yesterday afternoon, when I bought it", she shrugged her shoulders and Draco just nodded slightly, while she was shaking her head and then disappeared through the always open door of his office. Again he read the two messages in his inbox.

_People say it gets better with time. Do you want me to tell you something? It's not getting any better. Or more bearable. Or something else. It hurts more every day. I can't accept, that you're not longer with me, and I think I will never be able to. It feels like I have only half a heart left in my chest - only half a life left without you. Come back. . . I know you can't, but that's all I want._

This message was from last night. The second one came a few minutes ago.

_I had crazy dreams tonight. I should have let the box go. Locked away with the memories! I think it was too early. You think it was too early?_

What was that all about? Who was that, who wrote to him? These cryptic messages weren't meant for him, that was clear to him, and Draco was almost typing an answer, when, for a reason he did not know, he changed his mind. He had quickly put the phone in the drawer and returned to his daily business. Let's see if he could sink this devil thing in the Thames on occasion.

 

«««

 

It helped. Hermione would not have thought it possible, but since she had decided, that she would send Ron a message from time to time to let him take part in her life, the knot in her chest had loosened a bit. It may not have been anything special, but these little messages brought her reasonably passable through the day. In fact, she was so well that today, on a Friday evening, she had arranged to meet Ginny to have a girls' night out. Also Luna had liked to join them and the girls were now on the way through the humming and buzzing central London, looking for a pub, that wasn’t filled to the brim with roaring after-work supporters, which didn’t seem that easy at this time of day. She had even managed to put on her make-up since a long time and instead of her jeans, which she wore in her spare time, she had squeezed herself into a pretty dress that she had bought years ago and hadn't even worn since.

"What's Harry doing tonight?" Luna asked Ginny when they had just arrived on the banks of the Thames, where a bar lined up next to the other, and Hermione could see Ginny's face light by Harry's name, as if the sun had just risen after a dull, rainy day. She was generally not a jealous person, and Hermione really wanted to treat her friend with all her heartfelt happiness, but now she turned her gaze away and stared at the dark river with her lips pressed together. How could the world just keep spinning, where Ron was not there anymore? How could everyone else live a carefree life and be happy, when her happiness was taken from her? Hermione did not understand it until today and she hated herself for her embittered thoughts towards her friends, but at least she managed, not to let anything like that show up.

"He's trying his hand at poker today. Some muggle thing with cards. I don’t know. George and Dad are also at our house and then two of Harry's co-workers. It’s going to be a real men’s night with too much butterbeer and whisky, I guess. I'm afraid I’ll have to clear up the mess tomorrow and revive Harry at the same time." Ginny's laughter left goose bumps on Hermione's body and she had to breathe in and out deeply twice, to keep from bursting into tears. Ron should have been there too. He should also have had a nice evening with the others, and she should be the one to prepare a hangover breakfast for him the next morning. At the moment, however, everything looked very much like the only one who would get drunk until death today, was herself. As if on her own, her hand found its way into her little purse to pull out the phone, which she carried with her the last week. With almost mechanical precision, she unlocked the device and opened her - admittedly one-sided - conversation with Ron.  
  
_I hate the fact, that I can’t bring you breakfast to bed anymore. Whether it is reprehensible, if I get drunk now therefore?_

"Hermione, are you coming?", Luna suddenly wanted to know about her, and Hermione realized, that the two had already moved on and she had not noticed it because of all the typing. Quickly she pressed the 'send' button and put her cell phone back in her bag.

"Yeah, sorry, just had to do something." The sudden approach of a full-grown panic attack had disappeared and she decided that she would now have a nice evening with her friends. She didn’t want to be forever the buzzkill she had become. And if alcohol was needed today, then she was fine with that.

 

«««

 

"What is it, with this muggle thing, dude? I thought those things were a pain in the ass. Didn’t you throw the last one into the Thames?" Draco smirked at the words of his best friend. Today he has been out with Blaise again for a long time, because since Blaise took a new job in Manchester, he has rarely been seen in London. And as you grew older, friendships were often neglected because of work and other commitments. 

Sighing, he read the new message that had just popped up in the display and shook his head, quite as if he had to drive away an unpleasant thought. The unknown number had already written to him again. It’s been going on all week now and Draco didn’t know what to do with it. The messages came completely incoherent and he had first assumed it would stop anyway, if he didn’t answer, but by now he thought the sender was not expecting an answer at all. 

"Yes, but the damned thing hasn’t been quiet since I got it. Somebody's been writing me confused messages every day. Here, look!" With these words he had pushed his cellphone across the table and watched amusedly as Blaise rifled through the one-sided message flow.

"That's… bad! And damn hard, Draco!", He got big eyes and Draco smirked.

"How precisely summarized. You're a master of the paraphrasing words, Blaise."

"No, seriously, you have no idea who’s writing to you?"

"Not the faintest shimmer." Draco took a long sip from his bottle. They sat in the Onyx and had a rather secluded table. It was packed, but Draco felt comfortable in the anonymity of the London party scene. Only rarely did he find his way into the magical world when he left, for there he was known and that was not exactly a great advantage. Here among the Muggles, he could be who he wanted and no one who looked at him associated his face with that of a Death Eater, and the Dark Mark went neat as a casual tattoo. Yes, he liked not having to keep himself covered all the time, so he came here with Blaise tonight.

"That's completely confused, what she's writing. Here in the first messages, everything sounds really sad and so and then, on Wednesday:  _Where the hell, do I get asparagus at this time of year?_  Or here from yesterday morning:  _Shit, my boss kills me when I'm late again, but yesterday I just read too long. If you were still there, it would not have happened, so I blame you_. And just now, she's writing something about bringing breakfast to bed and that she wants to get drunk?", Blaise quoted some of the latest messages that had arrived in the past few days and Draco had no choice but to shrug his shoulders, as he couldn't make any sense of it himself.

"I don’t know, honestly. But why do you assume it's a she?"

"Hello? Because men don’t do that, maybe? Or would you come up with the idea, to send any messages to your ex-girlfriends? Oh, wait ...", Blaise said, frowning thoughtfully as he scrolled through all the messages again. "Do you know what I think? I think whoever's writing this, knows for a fact, that nothing will come back. It reads in places as if she were writing to someone who is no longer alive."

Draco hesitated, but if he thought better, his friend could be right. Why else would the person on the other end write again and again if she didn’t get an answer? He had no idea about these cellphone numbers and didn’t want to deal with the principle of how it worked, but could it be that he got the number, that had already belonged to someone? That would be possible, woulndn’t it? But that didn't make the whole thing any better, it just made it more creepy than it already was. He really needed to talk to Bethany about this on Monday and figure it out.

"You should write back and clarify the matter, mate," the words of his friend tore him out of his thoughts. Yeah, he probably should, but if he was completely honest with himself, he was simply curious. Which was basically nothing reprehensible, because he did nothing but receive messages. It was not his fault, if someone (and he also believed that it was a woman, by the way) sent him messages.

"Hmhm ...", made Draco and took another strong sip from his bottle. "I'll deal with that tomorrow, maybe. Now give me that damn phone, I'll get us another beer." And with these words, he took the small device out of Blaise's hand and slipped it into his pocket with the intention of leaving it right there tonight.

 

«««

  

Hermione had fun. Hard to believe, but she was doing great and yes, maybe that was partly because she felt tipsy after the second champagne (she just couldn't stand alcohol, but that was nothing new), but she simply didn't care about this fact either. It felt good, to finally be among people who weren't her business colleagues. Of course she liked her job and her colleagues at St. Mungos, but even there she was often greeted with pitiful looks, when she was absent for a few minutes from time to time.

Often a patient with red hair and freckles was already enough, that she left the room in a hurry and sent another healer. The worst part was, that these attitudes were simply accepted by the others and sometimes she felt like a raw egg. But well, she was still Hermione Granger, the war heroine who had tragically lost her fiancé.

People just didn't have enough guts to tell her in the face, that sometimes her behavior was more than just near the knuckle and Hermione for her part just didn't have the strength to work on that fact. Not yet. But today - yes, today - she felt good again for a long time.

Here in Muggle-London, she was a stranger. No celebrity. Her past didn't hang here like a Sword of Damocles shining over her curly head and that was exactly what she liked. She was just invited by a pretty attractive guy for a drink and that fitted her pretty well today. The drink, mind you, not the guy. She had just turned her back on him with a hopefully charming smile to go back to Ginny and Luna at the table. She had just come a step further, as she was already jostled from the side and it was only due to her good reflexes, that only a small amount of her cocktail sloshed out of the glass and she didn't pour it completely over the guy who had obviously overlooked her.

“Oh, excuse me, I didn't see you", she heard the voice from her left as she took her glass in her other hand and wiped the left one, now wet with alcohol, at the hem of her dress.

“No problem", Hermione replied promptly and looked up to see the guy she had just bumped into, but the further comment, she had just had on her lips, got stuck in her throat and instead she stared in disbelief at the young man in front of her.

“Granger?”

“Malfoy!”, it finally escaped her after a few seconds. Was she just dreaming or was Draco Malfoy standing in front of her, tall, blond and with a more than surprised expression on his face? He also didn't seem to know exactly what to say, for his eyebrow wandered to unexpected heights as he looked from her to the glass in her hand and back into her face again. Damn, this thing started to get awkward, when none of them said anything. Not that she had the desire to talk to Draco ‚Braggart’ Malfoy. Actually, she hadn't thought about the Slytherin in years. The last thing she had heard from Malfoy, was, that he had been acquitted and had suddenly disappeared from the scene after the war, which nobody seemed really sad about. As far as she knew, he now worked for ‘A wizzards home', a renowned real estate agent in London. However, she had only picked up this information once from a patient, who had talked to his bed neighbor about it and to this day, she had completely deleted this information off her brain.

Her gaze wandered over Malfoy's face, which hadn't really changed over the years, except that it had become more distinctive. He still had those deep, grey eyes and the hard facial traits, but he wore his hair a little different than at school. If hair gel had probably been his best friend at that time (or an adequate spell, who could know that for sure), he now completely renounced it, and the medium-long, blonde strands fell elegantly in his face.

And he had become manly. Very. The plain, black button-down shirt nestled itself against his upper body like a second skin, and Hermione looked with increasing fascination to his upper arms, whose muscles were clearly visible under the thin fabric. Damn, what the hell was she doing? She wasn't seriously in the middle of checking on Malfoy, just because he happened to be standing in front of her incredible handsome? She quickly gave herself an imaginary slap in the face and scratched her last remnant of self-respect together, as she looked him straight in the eye.

“I didn’t expect to see _you_ ”, she tried to say something harmless. The way he looked at her, however, he was well aware, that she had just been staring at him, and the conceited snob now put on a knowing smile, that was absolutely not conducive to Hermione's general well-being.

“And you, Granger? Hardworking at the party, as it seems?"

“Yeah, it's girls' night. Without men.” Okay, it was official, she was an idiot and absolutely not born for all the small talk. She was just confirmed by the smug look of the former Slytherin.

“Well then, have fun. And try the Planters Punch, it's unbeatable here.” And with this recommendation for a drink he turned away from her and just a few moments later disappeared into the crowd again.

“Holy shit", Hermione gasped after she emptied her drink with a big pull. What was that all about? She had to gather first, because not only had Malfoy caught her with his presence, no, his entire presence had also made her dizzy for a moment and for the first time in two years, something had awakened in her, that she had long forgotten. “Holy shit!", she whispered again, before she ordered a Planters Punch from the bartender.

 

  
«««

 

Granted, the encounter with Granger was quite surprising for Draco, too, and he wondered, how of all people Hermione Granger, the smug, got around in the onyx. And this, to cap it all, also still in a really respectable dress. He knew, of course, that she was a well-known healer in St. Mungos in the meantime and that she had invented some new cure for poisoning, after all, the Daily Prophet had news about her person almost daily. And even when her fiancé had bitten the dust, the newspaper had been full of reports. It didn't really surprise Draco, that Ron Weasley had died on a mission. For him it had always been clear, that Potter's red-haired sidekick would sooner or later manage to get himself killed. It had actually only been a matter of time. Yes, one could probably say, that even after all these years, he still couldn't muster any sympathy for the golden trio. Whereby, when he was just recalling the image of Granger in her tight cocktail dress, he probably had to revise his final thought a bit.

Annoyed, he spat the remains of his toothpaste into the sink and started to take off his clothes. He definitely belonged in bed when he was thinking about Granger. But it had also been too much fun, because he hadn't missed, how forcefully she had scrutinized him and how she had let her gaze glide over his body, checking and wondering. . . He would have to lie, he would say that he didn't like it. Even if it was Granger. Maybe just _because_ it was Granger. He couldn’t say with one hundred percent certainty.

When he hung his trousers neatly over the chair in his bedroom, he remembered his cell phone, which was still in his pocket. Only reluctantly he pulled it out and struggled with himself, because of course Blaise had been right with his words. Draco should write back and clarify the matter in any case, but there was a catch in this matter: He did not want to clarify it at all. As weird as that sounded, Draco had enjoyed receiving these little messages every day during the last week and it was exciting, not to know what would come next. And when.

Sighing, he unlocked the display and raised an eyebrow in amazement. He hadn't expected that now, in the middle of the night, a message would actually arrive, but the small message symbol flashed like crazy with the number “3” towards him. Tensely he opened the chat.

 _I had a nice evening and now I feel bad about it. . ._ , was in the first message and Draco shook his head. He just couldn't figure it out. The other two messages were also rather cryptic in nature.

 _Maybe I should listen to the others. What do you think? We never talked about it, of course, but maybe it would be okay fo_ _r_ _you?_

And then, half an hour later:  _You know what? I'll just try._

Slowly he put his cell phone down on the small nightstand next to his bed and looked at it for a short moment with mixed feelings. Maybe he should try to get a new number? After all, the whole thing went quite far into the privacy of another person and even if he tried to convince himself, that he was basically doing nothing forbidden, the whole thing had a slightly bitter aftertaste. On the other hand… As long as he didn't write back, nobody would ever know about it, so he rejected the first thought again and decided, that it was definitely time for bed.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your Kudos and for the feedback! I am happy, that some readers have found their way here :)

 

 

 

“I think it's great that you're doing this, really. And if he's not your type, then you can still thank him for the evening and just go!", Luna was obviously more optimistic than Hermione, which was nothing new in general. Since she had decided, that it was time to meet again with men, she had taken a slight wave of panic. She didn't know how to date. How could she? While she was still at school, she had met Ron and since then, the plan had actually been to spend the rest of her life with him. She had never had a plan B and she would never have thought for a second, that she would have to date other men, or even want to. She sighed deeply.

„I don't know, Luna. I don't even know this guy. What if he's deadly boring or just looking for a one-night stand? Or what, if he hates books?", Admittedly, maybe she was exaggerating a little at the moment, but a small touch of panic overcame her at the thought of spending the evening with a complete stranger, whom she had found on an internet platform. If you take a closer look at it, it was embarrassing and pitiful on top of that.

“Maybe, you should take a closer look at the one-night stand – thing.”

“Luna!”, Hermione exclaimed outraged, but had to laugh directly as she looked into the innocent face of her friend, who grinned at her amusedly. Especially Luna, who had no ambitions at all, to deal with such things as relationships or something like that.

“I’m just saying, you shouldn't set your expectations too high, then maybe you'll have some fun.”

Luna was probably right about that. Hermione should try, not to expect too much from this date. But that wasn't as easy as she thought, because since last weekend, a kind of restlessness had spread inside her, which almost drove her crazy. She couldn't explain, where it came from and why she had decided to end her celibacy from one day to the next, but something had awakened her desire for closeness and attention, and no, Draco Malfoy had never been the trigger, no matter how handsome he had been standing in front of her! She just had to tell herself that long enough, that she believed it in the end. Fortunately, she still had time to sort her thoughts out. She had finished her shift at the hospital earlier today and had a weekend off ahead of her, so she had at least four hours left, before she had to decide which outfit was appropriate for this date. Time, she wanted to invest in an extensive bath.

Already after the first minutes in the bathtub, she felt like changed. The tension, she had been carrying around with her for the last few days, suddenly fell away completely from her and gradually she began to look forward to the evening. Luna was right, what could happen, except that it didn't live up to her expectations? In this case, she could end the evening at any time, to wrap herself in her duvet with her latest book and forget the men world for another two years. She thought that was a good plan.

As the warm steam gradually lulled her in, she decided it was time to tell Ron, and strangely enough, she was nervous. She knew it was stupid, because even though it felt that way at times, she knew of course that she didn't really write to Ron, but that her messages were sent to nowhere. But even that fact didn’t matter to her, because it actually helped her. Most of the time it was trivial things she wrote. Just like a few days ago, when she had been upset about her boss, or the morning when she had bumped her little toe on the door frame and just wanted to whine a little, but of course she didn't want to leave him out of such an important decision. But it was hard.

Foresighted, Hermione had taken her cell phone to the bathroom and placed it on the shelf, but now that she was holding it in her hand, which had already become wrinkled from the water, she did not know exactly what she wanted to write. It felt like betrayal on the one hand, because at least she met another man. On the other hand - and that just can’t be blandished - Ron was dead and he wouldn't care what she did or didn't do anymore. Even if she met the entire Quidditch team of the Chudley Cannons, he wouldn't care.

Hermione sighed as she slowly typed in the message. She didn’t even read what she had written, but quickly pressed the “send” button, put the phone back on the shelf and breathed deeply once before diving completely under water, hoping that the feeling of guilt could be washed away with a little foam.

 

 

«««

 

 

Draco sat at his desk with his head in his hands, as he wondered for the hundredth time that day, why he‘d ever taken this cursed job. He had spent half the day showing a really incredibly annoying older lady various houses, none of which had been good enough. Once it was too sunny, the other time too dark, on the third house, the name of the neighbours had disturbed her, and after the sixth house, Draco had finally given it up and had returned to the office, stressed out, in order to at least do something productive today. He had set himself the task of working off the whole paperwork on his desk, before the weekend. And all this paperwork was still there, because of two meetings with Mr White, who had now decided to meet Draco in person rather than bomb him with phone calls, probably because Draco used to invite his business partner to an expensive steakhouse in London's Westend.

To top it all off, Bethany had called in sick yesterday and he groaned annoyed at the sight of his empty coffee cup. Clumsily he got up and shuffled with unenthusiastic steps over to the tea kitchen, where he poured himself a fresh cup of the coffee and looked at the clock. It was just past four, if he was lucky, he'd get out of here before his favorite Chinese restaurant closed down and he could get some food.

As he walked back to his desk, his gaze fell on the little mobile-devil's-device, from which he still hadn't parted, even though he had firmly decided to throw it further into the river this time. But the messages, which had arrived again and again this week, had prevented him from doing so. Yes, he had even started to look at his phone almost every hour, only to put it out of his hands frustrated, because no new message had arrived.

Well, admittedly, it was kind of macabre, considering that someone was writing to a deceased person there, and Draco was happy about those little messages, but he couldn't deny, that he had fun getting these, sometimes quite funny, messages. On Tuesday she had written, (and in the meantime, he was convinced that a woman was writing and he liked to imagine, that she was young and pretty) that she had pushed her little toe into the door frame and was using some ugly insults, that had made Draco smile half the day. Today, however, not a single message had been arrived all day and he didn't really wonder, where his bad mood came from. On a Friday afternoon, with the prospect of overtime.

 Without further ado, he reached for the phone and almost swallowed his coffee when he saw, that a message had actually arrived.

_In_ _four_ _hours_ _I meet with a guy at_ _the_ _Onyx_ _, this_ _is_ _a_ _new_ _scene_ _bar_ _-_ _yo_ _u probably_ _would_ _have_ _hated_ _it_ _. :)_ _I'm_ _so_ _sorry_ _, but_ _I_ _can't_ _hide any_ _longer_ _, it breaks me_ _. I_ _know_ _you'd_ _want_ _me_ _to_ _be_ _happy_ _, but_ _the_ _funny_ _thing_ _is_ _, I_ _don’t even know, if I want_ _to_ _be_ _happy_ _at_ _all_ _. But_ _at_ _least_ _it_ _can't_ _hurt_ _to_ _try_ _, right?_ The coffee was forgotten and so was the work, that piled up on his desk and seemed to laugh at him. She came from London. This woman just had to come from London, because it would be too much of a coincidence, if there was a new bar called Onyx somewhere else in the United Kingdom. And she would be there tonight. On a date. Perhaps this was the only opportunity, Draco would ever have to find out, who this woman was! He didn't have to talk to her, but he could watch her and would at least once see, what she looked like. On the other hand, he was a stalker then and that thought made him crimple up his nose for a moment, but he couldn't follow the thought, because at that very moment the next message came.

_Oh God, what I am gonna wear?_

Draco laughed. He had no choice but to jump over his shadow and make a trip to the Onyx tonight. Who knew, maybe he didn't recognize her at all, considering the average number of guests that were in the bar on a weekend. Most likely, he would just sit there, drink one or two beers, and apparate after unfinished things back home, but maybe he would be lucky enough to recognize her. At the moment he didn’t know exactly, whether he should rather hope for one or the other. What he knew, however, was that he was tired of the job and he decided in that second, that the open tasks could wait until Monday and so he grabbed his jacket from the clothes rack and headed home. The full coffee mug was still standing exactly where he had left it before.

 

«««

 

 

„Okay, Hermione, you can do this. Inhale, exhale. Don't lose your nerve", she encouraged herself as she waited in front of the bar entrance for her blind date. She was too early and was annoyed about it, because now she looked at the clock every minute, then looked around nervously in all directions and felt more than just stupid. She didn't even know exactly, what the guy she was dating looked like. Sure, Hermione had seen a profile picture of him and he was dark-haired, had brown eyes and had looked on the small photo actually quite sympathetic, but more she did not know.

“Hermione”, the voice from the right suddenly sounded, and she cursed herself in the moment, that she had already looked at the clock again. She lifted her eyes and looked into a few dark eyes. Wow, the man was tall and she was immediately annoyed, that she was wearing flat shoes and had renounced the heels.

“Hi”, she said, not very eloquent, and suddenly wished she was far, far away. But no, she'd get through it today and give it a chance. “You must be Brandon?"

“You look good", the guy didn't answer her question and she was shocked to find that he was staring straight into her neckline and completely ignoring her face. She immediately felt uncomfortable, but on the other hand, when was the last time someone had given her any kind of attention, even though it primarily concerned her breasts? Just because this Brandon obviously liked her body, didn't mean he wasn't a nice guy. She hoped.

“Uh yeah, well. . . thanks. Want to go in?", she didn't wait for an answer and opened the door to the Onyx for herself, which at this time of day didn't seem as crowded as last week. They had quickly found a table on one of the two glazed window fronts and Hermione let herself slide as elegantly as possible onto the high barstool.

“I’ll get us something to drink first, what do you want?", Mr Blind Date wanted to know from her right away and with a smile she ordered a Planters Punch. One can say a lot about Draco Malfoy, but not, that he had no taste, because the cocktail was really good and if she was honest, Hermione had been looking forward to ordering it again tonight. It didn't take long before he came back with two glasses in his hands and put one of them in front of her nose. Already after the first sip she noticed, that it was not the cocktail she ordered, but something with a lot of alcohol.

“Wow, that's not Planters' Punch?”, she said and put the glass a bit away from herself.

“Oh, I thought you ordered a Long Island Ice Tea.” Brandon just shrugged his shoulders and let himself sink onto his barstool opposite her. That started well, she thought to herself wryly. If she didn't like something, it was when someone didn't listen to her. This quality could make her furious and just earned her date a lot of negative points.

The first impression, unfortunately, didn't get any better with the second one, because Hermione had rarely been so annoyed by a conversation, than by this one. This was not because this Brandon was not talkative, but rather because the opposite was true. After only half an hour, her head buzzed with the constant flow of information that he threw at her. After a very short time she knew, that he spent all his free time in the gym and especially liked fast cars and motorcycles. Besides, he would never let his girlfriend forbid him, to go on holiday alone with his buddies. Preferably to Mallorca, of course. His last girlfriend had also been such a bore, because she hadn't really wanted to go to the gym with him and had only hung in front of her canvases all the time. She was an art student, by the way - creepy! But she had been pretty, oh yes!

“And what do you most like to do in your free time?", he actually wanted to know about her at some point, after he had probably noticed that she had hardly spoken a word herself.

Hermione was tired of this terrible date. The guy was just unpleasant and narcissistic. Maybe she shouldn’t have dated, or maybe, she should have dated someone from the wizarding world. That's what she got out of wanting to reintegrate herself into the Muggle world. She had no idea, how to get out of all this, though.

“Well, you know, I work at the hospital, there's not much free time left. I like to read and. . . well, go to the cinema now and then", she shrugged her shoulders, because with the best will in the world, she couldn't think of anything else she liked to do. This realization shocked her more than the fact, that the guy just got up and said he had to go to the toilet and get a new drink. There she was, wanting to scream out loud and would gladly get up and leave, but instead she took another generous sip of this horror cocktail and pulled her cell phone out of the small handbag, that had been lying close at hand in her lap.

 

«««

 

 

What was he thinking coming here for, anyway? Not only did he sit alone at the bar like the last idiot and feel like a stalker, no, he hadn't thought about what would happen, if he really saw her. Not that he'd believe it, because he had been watching pretty much every women in the bar, but none of them looked like they were on their first date.

Frustrated, he ordered his second beer and let his gaze wander over the guests again. However, the door just opened and at the same time Draco's jaw fell one floor down, because Hermione Granger entered the room, closely followed by a tall, dark-haired guy. That was interesting. Never in his life would he have thought, that he would meet his former classmate twice in less than two weeks. The bartender had just put the bottle in front of his nose and Draco just grabbed it absently and took a generous sip as he followed the two with his eyes.

They sat down at a small table by the window and the guy made his way to the bar to get something to drink. Granger, meanwhile, seemed noticeably nervous. He could only watch her from the side and she was too far away for him to see her facial expressions in detail, but her tense posture and the fact, that she kept plucking her hair led him to conclude, that she probably had a date with the guy and as soon as he had finished thinking, he almost dropped his beer bottle in shock. Granger. A date. Here. Messages to a supposedly deceased friend. Weasley was dead. Fucking hell! That couldn't possibly be the answer to the mystery, could it? For Merlin’s sake, it couldn't be Granger! Was it just a stupid coincidence, that she of all people had a date here?

Draco quickly looked around the entire bar again. But no, either he saw individual ladies who were in the company of girlfriends or couples who didn't look at all like they were seeing each other for the first time today. Damn it. Now he was tense, too, and with narrowed eyes, he watched as Granger's date returned to their table and began a conversation. No, more of a monologue, because everything looked like, the guy was talking Granger into the ground. And this was a remarkable achievement, he thought with a smile.

With growing fascination, Draco noticed, that Granger seemed more annoyed minute by minute and then, as her companion suddenly stood up and headed for the restroom, Draco gasped as she pulled a small cell phone out of her pocket and tapped on it with a pinched expression on her face. Hastily he pulled his own phone out of his pocket and unlocked the display.

His gaze shifted in turn from Granger, still concentrating on her keyboard, to the small phone in his hand and back again. The seconds, between the moment she put her cell phone on the table in front of her and the moment, Draco realized, that it was Granger who actually sent him the messages, passed slowly and dragged themselves along like chewing gum. But then his phone vibrated and it was there, the little symbol in the top right corner, that displayed a new message.

“Damn shit", Draco cursed quietly and with trembling fingers opened the message, which he knew was not meant for him at all, but for Weasley.

 

_I_ _f there is any kind of God where you are, please tell him to send someone to rescue_ _me immediately. Gosh, what did I think? This guy's terrible._

 

With mixed feelings Draco now watched Granger's date come back and, despite her obvious dislike, she smiled friendly at him. Why did she do that? She could just get up and walk away, couldn't she? Draco did not make much sense of her (maybe even women in general), but if he thought about it, he'd never made much sense of Granger, so that was probably nothing new.  Gosh, this was better than any movie and now the guy seemed to blow all the fuses out, because he actually stretched his biceps towards Granger and apparently asked her to touch it. Draco had to laugh out loud at this sight and caught himself a funny look from the bartender. Meanwhile Granger apparently refused thankfully and clung to her cell phone in search of help, while her date continued to talk her crazy.

 

_Why the hell is he DOING this? He is not quite normal! Oh god, please let some normal men run around out there somewhere!_

 

While he was still reading the words she had just sent to him, he saw Granger's appendage hanging over the table in a very intrusive way and keeping on pestering. Draco shook his head with disbelief and amusement. This guy was more than just a ridiculous scrub and he couldn't quite believe what he was doing, but he could think about it later. Now he had to go and rescue Granger.

 

 

«««

 

 

Okay, this went really wrong and Hermione just gave herself an imaginary headbutt, because she really should have just got up and left before. That‘s what’s left now from her good upbringing. This Brandon was not only a superficial, autocratic asshole, but apparently made no secret of the fact that he was highly interested in getting Hermione into his bed today and while he was still smiling confidently across the table to her, she automatically swerved backwards. She would just make up an excuse right now and. . .

“Hermione? Oh, thank God you're here! I thought I'd never find you!" She knew the voice from somewhere, which now penetrated her ears from the right, but only when she looked in wonder at the serious face of Draco Malfoy, did she know _how_ she knew the voice. At first she was far too perplexed about this bizarre situation, to say anything about it, instead an imaginary question mark seemed to float above her head and Brandon was also so confused about the disturbance, that he completely forgot to want to get any closer to her.

“Uhm…”, made Hermione while Draco pulled up a bar stool from the next table and just sat next to her.

“I know I'm gonna take you by surprise, but to be honest, I couldn't wait till tomorrow. I noticed you were meeting someone here, and that's why I'm here. Please, give us another chance, will you? Don't start anything with this idiot here", Malfoy said, and Hermione got bigger eyes with every word, but didn't make a sound. What just happened here? Her brain didn't quite come along, and for once that wasn't due to alcohol, because she hadn't even half emptied her glass.

“Excuse me?”, the said idiot now turned in outraged and indignantly, but Malfoy didn’t respond to his interjection, but looked Hermione straight in the eyes and only the little wink and a twitching corner of his mouth told her, that he was just having a great time. Well, it was perhaps a really strange situation, but Hermione was not particularly clever for nothing and switched quite fast. This was her chance to disappear, so she decided to just play along.

“I don’t really know. . . Draco. I mean, I miss you, but we're so different", she replied  theatrically and skillfully overheard Brandons: „What’s going on here?” 

“I don't care. Let's settle this in peace. Come with me, will you?" Hermione almost had to laugh at this performance, because never, ever in her life had she seen such an expression on Draco Malfoy's face and she would have liked to pinch herself, to make sure this was real.

“Hermione, would you please enlighten me?" Brandon wanted to know now energetically and then, suddenly, her worldview was back in the right place, because Malfoy stared at her date with such a devastating look as only he could and as she had already seen him a hundred times. Back at Hogwarts. When the world was still right. Hermione swallowed.

“And you are?", Draco asked condescendingly and with a rasping voice, while he reached for Hermione's drink and emptied the rest of the cocktail in a big gulp, before noisily dropping the glass in front of the dark-haired man.

“My name is Brandon Bogart", he pressed out of clenched teeth and Malfoy rose in a flowing movement, but not without giving him another superior look.

“Goodbye Brandon. Thanks for the drink. Are you coming?" With these words he held out his hand to Hermione and she did not hesitate a second before she grabbed it and let herself be pulled from her bar stool. She formed with her lips a silent ‘Sorry’ for her date and shrugged only with her shoulders, while she let herself be abducted from the onyx by Draco Malfoy in all seriousness. The world was really crazy and Hermione was now more than excited about what it was all about. As soon as they had left the bar behind and stepped into the next alley, Hermione wanted to confront him, but Malfoy just shook his head, pulled her in a quick gesture and had apparated only a blink of an eye later.

„I thought maybe I'd better get a few yards between us and the bar. You never know", Malfoy said with a grin and brought back a reasonable distance between himself and Hermione, after they had materialized again with a quiet bang just a few streets away. Meanwhile, Hermione's head whirred. She had to gather first and sort out her thoughts, because she was just sitting on the worst date of all time and suddenly Draco Malfoy, the guy she was supposed to despise and who had made her hell out of Hogwarts, stood in front of her and heroically saved her. Something's gone wrong here.

“Thank you", she said simply, and couldn't help but stare at him in confusion. “What did you do in the bar?"

“What people do in bars, I suppose. It got more interesting, though, when you walked in the door. Say, Granger, what were you thinking about that guy?" Now he laughed quietly and Hermione trickled down the spine at the sound, with a pleasant shiver.

“Probably nothing", she shrugged her shoulders and folded her arms in front of her chest. “It was awful. So thanks for the rescue, Malfoy. That was very. . . nice.“

Malfoy's eyebrow went up. “You say that like you're surprised?"

“Well, you're not nice, maybe that's why”, Hermione laughed and still didn't know exactly what to think of this bizarre situation. The second time in a very short time the former Slytherin ran into her and both times nothing had reminded her of him at all of the puke from before. Also today he looked outrageously good again, Hermione noticed annoyed. That was more than counterproductive.

“It’s been a long time, Granger. But don't worry, I'm still mostly such an ass like I used to be.”

“When you're not rescuing women from horrible dates?"

“When I'm not rescuing women from horrible dates, yes,", he agreed with a grin and made a jerking movement with his head. “Are we going for a walk?” 

Hermione blinked and thought she had misheard herself, but this was not the case, because Malfoy actually started to walk and silently she joined him in the end. The evening was funny enough anyway, so it did not matter anymore to go for a walk with Draco Malfoy, right?

 

 

«««

 

 

Draco didn't have the faintest idea, what the hell he was doing. Well, the plan had been to save her, but if he was honest, he had not intended to take her for a walk or do anything else with her. His brain still hadn't quite worked out, that the unknown message-girl was Granger. But that fact had changed something. Deep inside him. He couldn't explain it to himself, but she suddenly seemed more familiar to him, as if he knew her better now. What was absolute nonsense, because the only thing he could refer to in the regard of this statement, were small thought fragments of her, which he had accidentally received. But still. . .

It was strangely easy to talk to her, and if he had never thought possible before, he had to admit that he enjoyed it. Granger told him a lot about her work, about Potter and Ginny Weasley, about the fact, that she missed Hogwarts terribly from time to time and, last but not least, about the fact, that after a long time she had decided to go on a date. She didn't mention Ron Weasley in a word, but she didn't have to, because she probably knew, that everyone in the wizarding world was aware of Weasley's death. Even though Draco hadn't been very nice to her in the past, he had enough sensibility, not to talk to her about it.

„But believe me, this was the first and last time, I dated any guy. That was a really stupid idea", Granger concluded and Draco looked at her thoughtfully. In the meantime, they had stopped, in the middle of the Tower Bridge, leaning against the railing, and Hermione's gaze lay on the glittering city that stretched to the right and left along the Thames in front of them.

“Maybe you should try it again, preferably with a normal man and not with such a. . . brainless fool", he grinned as he watched her closely. Admittedly, it impressed him, that she hadn't completely dressed up for her date. Jeans, flat boots and a dark blue waterfall top clung against her slender body and she had just left her hair open, so the wind could now play with her curls and for a moment he got lost in the picture, that Hermione Granger just released as she looked smilingly into the distance.

„Oh yes? And you mean, such exist?", she wanted to know thoughtfully and now looked amused in his direction. He really didn't know right now, what it was, that drove him to his answer. He wasn't even sure, if he had just drunk too much, but basically he didn't want to analyse it, because there was something about Granger, that made him curious. She was a mystery to him and an open book at the same time, and the fact, that her eyes were competing with the lights of the city at the very moment, contributed the rest.

“Let’s go out, Granger. Tomorrow", he suggested and noted favourably, that he was throwing her completely off course, with this proposal.

“Please. . . what?", she breathed as her eyes grew bigger.

“I’m serious. Look, before you hold on forever to this traumatic experience with this Bradley and end up as a lonely old woman with twenty cats. . . “, he let the sentence hang in the air and earned an outraged look from her.

“Very nice, really Malfoy. Very friendly. His name was Brandon, by the way.”

“I told you, I'm at least as big an ass, as I was in Hogwarts, so not much has changed. And I don't really care, what the loser's name was", he said, pompously, making a throw-away gesture that made Hermione laugh.

“And you think, when I go out with the great Draco Malfoy, I'm what exactly. . . ? Healed?" Her look suggested that she disagreed completely, but she hadn't said no, which Draco noticed very well.

“Yes, I do.”

“You first have to find a window as big as the one you're leaning out of, Malfoy.”

He laughed and felt a strange kind of pride in her and that she was still the one, who could stand up to him. “Maybe. So?"

Granger seemed to be fighting a battle with herself. Draco found it amusing, to watch how disbelief and curiosity met in her face, and despite her generally open and honest manner, he felt as if she was about to raise an invisible wall or - and this was perhaps her intention - not to let the wall collapse.

“Granger…”, he said now a little less brashly than before and drew her attention again, after she had just been looking everywhere and yet nowhere, the main thing not to him. “…don't be a coward.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

What had she been thinking? She was so stupid! _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ That word had been running through her confused mind all day, like tough chewing gum, and she let her head sink into her palms as she thought of what she was about to face today. Why had she just agreed, to go on a date with Draco Malfoy? Which Hippogriff had ridden her? And wasn’t it perhaps too late, to come up with an excuse? All these thoughts drove her mad and argued at regular intervals, with the question of what to wear.  
  
He had challenged her, last night, when she had stood on Tower Bridge and mocked her Gryffindor-Courage. Sort of. And she had put her little fists on her hips and countered him by saying, that she would love nothing more, than to go on a date with the great Draco Malfoy and he'd better come up with something even more damn great, to convince her, that dates could be different. And now she was screwed, because not only did her stomach rotate continuously in circles, no. She knew, that deep in her heart, she was looking forward to the date with him. And that scared her. 

She wasn’t an idiot - Hermione had already noticed a week after her first encounter with the blond Malfoy, that this man was incredibly attractive. If she thought about it, that would have been the case at school, but fortunately his pureblood attitude had contributed to the fact, that she had not been able to become a giggling fan girl under any circumstances, just like those who had otherwise been in his sphere of influence. At the thought of Pansy Parkinson, she almost had to laugh.

But now she went on a date with Draco Malfoy, and this thought caused at the same time the fear sweat in her neck, also a nervous tingling, which slowly and steadily crept through her guts.

"Hermione, are you all right? You haven’t even told me, how your date went by." Luna had just entered the small, bright kitchen where Hermione was sitting at the table, moaning in pain and cursing herself for hours.  _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_  
"The date was ... horrible to be honest", she now pushed herself to tell her friend about the strange evening, that was still in her bones. "This guy was just in love with himself and not sympathetic at all. I would probably still be sitting there, listening to his egocentric gossip, if Draco Malfoy hadn’t saved me." Any normal person, or better said, any of her other friends, would have backed off the chair in shock, not Luna, who meanwhile sat opposite her calmly and looked at her expectantly.

"Oh, that was nice of him, wasn’t it?"  
Hermione wanted to laugh, cry and scream at once. She loved Luna, but sometimes – yes sometimes - she just wanted to grab her friend by the shoulders and shake her. She swallowed.

"Yes, I think ... uhm ... it was. We're going on a date today. "  
If Luna was astonished at this statement (which Hermione strongly doubted), she did not show it, just shrugged her shoulders. 

"That's good, maybe this will be a better date. I mean, it's Draco Malfoy, I guess you can expect something great."

"Luna!", exclaimed Hermione, but in the meantime, she had to giggle herself. 

"When are you going out?"

Yeah, and that was the funny part of it and something, that’s been keeping Hermione busy all day. After she agreed to go on a date with Malfoy, he took her address and told her, he'd pick her up at four in the afternoon. Which normal person went to a date on a Saturday afternoon? Although, it was Malfoy, she did not really wonder anymore.

"At four ...", she mumbled, while her thoughts were already far away again. 

"So, in six minutes?", Luna wanted to know and now it was Hermione, who almost fell backwards from her chair. What? How could she forget the time like that? Her shocked look at the clock, however, was unambiguous.

"SHIT!", she exclaimed, almost knocking over her teacup, when she jumped up and rushed into her room as of stung by a tarantula.

 

  
«««

 

  
"Hello, Draco Malfoy!" Three little words of a simple greeting, which threw him off the track just as if Voldemort himself were standing in front of him personally. Not that he would compare Luna Lovegood to the Dark Lord. But in his mind, whether he wanted to or not (and clearly he did not want to!), the image of the Dark Lord with radish earrings formed and quickly shook his head to expel this highly disturbing thought as quickly as possible.

"Lovegood?", he finally brought out and lowered his hand, which still hovered in front of him in the air, and with which he had just wanted to knock on the door before it had been opened before. 

"You are on time. That's beautiful", smiled the young, blonde woman in front of him, whom he had already found very strange during his school years and who, even after all these years, managed to confuse him. "Come on in. I think Hermione should be ready soon. She seemed a bit nervous to me. Would you like something to drink? "And with these words, she had already led him into a small but nicely furnished kitchen. Draco declined greatfully and confined himself to leaning against the wall next to the kitchen door and watching Lovegood. And wonder. About why Hermione Granger probably lived under the same roof as this very opposite person. Strangely enough, however, he found the fact reassuring in a weird way.

"How long have you been living together?", he asked, just to say something. He was skilled in Smalltalk, but so far, he has never had to have a conversation with Lovegood. Hopefully, Granger would soon be ready to save him this time.

"Since Ronald's death. A few days later, she moved in. Unfortunately, she is way too tidy, because whenever she gets a cleaning attack, I don’t find anything afterwards", sighed the young woman in front of him, who was just preparing herself a tea, made of a strange tentacle-like undergrowth. She seemed to have recognized his doubtful look. "Spool roots," she enlightened him as a matter of course and pointed to her tea. He did not respond. "But otherwise she is a great roommate. If one day you guys get married and want to move together, you will definitely find always fragrant and preheated towels in the bathroom. This spell is her specialty, I think she developed it herself. "

Draco's facial features slipped and he was glad that he had refused her offer of a drink, otherwise he might have swallowed it and stifled on the spot. Please what?

"Luna?" He heard Granger's voice from another part of the apartment and he silently thanked God, that she would seem to redeem him. Granted, he was nervous after all. More than that. He could not explain, why he asked Granger for a date. No, challenged her to a date, would probably be more like it. But even less he could explain, why the fact that Granger hadn’t contacted him all day, made him nervous. Not him, of course, but Weasley. Still, he had not received a single message from her all day and didn’t know, what to think about it. Wasn’t it important enough for her, to tell her dead boyfriend about her date? Was she possibly ashamed? Or had she simply forgotten it, because she had been busy thinking about this incomprehensibility? He hoped for the latter.

"Kitchen!" Lovegood interrupted him in his thoughts, but by then Granger had already rushed past him and now stood with her back to him in the middle of the small room and seemed upset. 

"What have I just thought, to date Draco Malfoy, of all people? I don’t have anything to wear, nor do I have any idea what to talk to him about, damn shit. I mean, the guy used to be so arrogant and snooty, and now he might still be, but Luna, you should have  _seen_  him. He’s so handsome! Every damn strand of hair falls perfectly into the idiot's face and I don’t even get an eyelid line drawn." Granger had thrown her hands into the air in a theatrical gesture after the last sentence, and a groan of annoyance followed her words. Draco really tried not to laugh, and at the same time he wondered, why Lovegood was not already lying laughing on the floor, but she just frowned and looked attentively at her roommate.

"But you've found something to wear, haven’t you?", she asked in surprise, examining her friend's dress, which was made up of light jeans and a dark red top. It was a pity, that she had found something to wear, Draco thought, because the image of Granger in her underwear flickered in front of his inner eye and he gave himself an imaginary head-nut. "Besides ...," continued Lovegood, "I’m sure you can talk to him about a lot. He doesn’t seem arrogant anymore, if you ask me. Besides, he's a very punctual person.”

Now Draco couldn’t hold back a faint gurgling and of course Granger had heard it. He noticed now, how her entire body froze in movement.

"Malfoy is behind me, right?", she whimpered, but obviously didn’t dare to turn around.  

"Exactly", he said amused. "And the idiot doesn’t think that you need an eyelid line today, Granger."

  
«««

 

  
Hermione wanted to sink into the ground. She wanted to dig a big hole with her own hands, jump in upside down and only come out after a million years. It was so embarrassing and even worse, that Malfoy just did not say anything about it. He had instructed her to put on comfortable shoes and held the door open for her, while she shot an angry look in Luna's direction and grabbed her bag and jacket from the dressing room. But of course, it was neither Luna's nor Malfoy's fault, that she put her foot straight into it. Hermione took heart.

"Malfoy, I'm sorry -"

"No, Granger. Do not apologize for something that you said, it's no use, if that's what you meant at the time." He guided her into a small side street, probably to apparate unseen. At least, that's what she hoped. But she didn’t think, that he was killing her, far away from eyewitnesses. At least not anymore.

"Okay." She took a deep breath and then exhaled again.  

"Besides, you said that you think I'm handsome, and you couldn’t possibly have meant it." His cheeky grin helped her, at least, so that her guilty conscience dipped a bit. But at the same time, she was grateful to him, because he had managed within seconds, to ease the tense mood. However, Malfoy did not wait for an answer from her, just handed her his arm and Hermione didn’t even have time to ask where it was going, as she already felt the unpleasant pull of the apparation. She had never liked this kind of travelling. The fast images that passed by, the sheer loss of sense of time and the dizziness, that usually lasted a few minutes after apparition, contributed the rest to this. But it took less than three seconds, before she was back on solid ground, which she was more than grateful for.

They were no longer in town, that was the first thing Hermione noticed, while she was looking around. They were standing in front of a coarse-mesh fence, behind which she made out a sort of ... parcours (she really couldn’t think of a better word), and this went over into a small piece of forest about fifty meters further back. The strange thing, though, was, that everything was pretty ... colorful. A thought formed in her mind as she vaguely remembered, that she had heard of it before, but before she came to the solution of the riddle, Malfoy had guided her a few meters along the fence and raised his voice.

"So, ready for the revenge?", he wanted to know and gave her a look ,that she would have put somewhere between cheeky and deceitful. Hermione took a closer look. There, a few meters further to the right, stood a small hut with a sign "Registration" and in the window sat a young guy who nodded to them with a friendly smile. She took also a closer look at the course, and as she stared at the many bright splashes of paint, sticking to each and every object, her eyes widened in shocked surprise.

"You're going to play paintball with me?" Okay, she didn’t know WHAT she was expecting, but this hadn’t been it with one hundred percent certainty. One thing she had to admit to herself, was, that Draco Malfoy didn’t do half things and apparently, he didn’t lack self-confidence either.

"Yeah, I thought, what would be better for the both of us, than firing at each other?", he said with an exhilarating glint in his stormy grey eyes and Hermione couldn’t even control the laughter that broke out of her, if she had intended to. 

A few minutes later she found herself in full warsuit, consisting of a protective vest, visor and mask with a rifle in the hand opposite Malfoy, who of course wore the same protective clothing, but still looked good in an outrageous way. Hermione was sure, that she had to look stupid at best, and was annoyed by the fact, that she was worried about her appearance. 

_Stupid stupid stupid!_

"Hot, Granger. Especially when you look that angry." She heard the voice of Malfoy, muffled by his own mask, and got even more annoyed.

"Better you're fast!", she growled out of clenched teeth as she aimed her rifle barrel directly between his eyes, but all he responded to, was a deep laugh and only a moment later he was already disappeared between two huge bales of hay. Hermione shook her head. That was crazy. That was absolutely and in every imaginable way, as something could be crazy at all, crazy. She stared for a moment at the gun in her hand and smiled, for, of course, she had reached for the red paint balls while Malfoy grabbed the greens. She thought back to their time together at Hogwarts. Could a person change so much? Had she herself changed in all these years? Had to be like this, otherwise she would hardly go to a date with him. "OUCH!", She suddenly cried out in surprise, looking down at herself quickly. A green splash of color was on her thigh, and Hermione was sure, she would find a monstrous bruise at this spot by tomorrow.

"Do you want to take root, Granger?" She heard his voice from farther away, but even with narrowed eyes she couldn’t see him anywhere. Adrenaline rushed through her body and a joyful buzz spread inside her, as she sneaked as carefully and attentively as possible in Malfoy's direction. If he wanted war, he should have it.

«««

  
  
Harshly panting, Draco was only three quarters of an hour later hidden behind a mound in the small forest and checked whether he still had enough ammunition in his gun. Of course, he had known that Granger would not be an easy opponent, but the doggedness with which she chased and fought him, was almost scary. Anyway, it was impressive. In the meantime, they were both strewn with red and green splashes of color, and he was sure, that his fair skin would glow tomorrow in the most splendid blues and greens, in the places where he wore no protective clothing, but this battle with Granger was definitely worth it. He actually had fun and he would not have thought that possible in his wildest dreams.

"Come out, ferret and turn yourself in! You have no chance! " Her clear voice echoed through the forest and Draco chuckled as he raised his head a few inches to peer over the low mound. There she stood, in the middle of the next group of trees, with her back to him, her rifle at the ready, and he did not think about it for long, aimed, and pulled the trigger. Well, it was not exactly the nicest way, shooting a woman in the back, but Granger somehow didn’t count. He wasn’t quite sure, what Granger was to him yet, but one thing she was definitely: merciless. Only milliseconds after his bullet had struck her right between the shoulder blades, she whirled around in almost inhuman speed and had spotted him a blink of an eye later.

"Fuck", Draco whispered as she started her a sprint, straight in his direction, and he could not jump up as quickly as Granger flew over the mound with an enormous set. His lead was ridiculous, but his luck was, that she was too close to him to point the gun at him. Apparently, Granger saw it similarly, because in that very second, he noticed in the corner of his eye how she threw it away in a high arc and in the next he landed already, face first, in the dirt. She had torn him to the ground with a pike jump and was now sitting triumphantly on his back.  

"HA!" She exclaimed, she was obviously not capable of anything else, because her breathing was heavy and wheezing. He almost felt sorry for what he had to do now. But only almost. He quickly turned away from her, grabbed her by the waist and threw her aside. Quickly he reached back to his own weapon, which he had to let go for this action and before Granger had the chance to get up, he had rolled around to her and aimed his rifle at the level of her sternum.

"Also HA!" He grinned and shoved his visor and mask from off his sweaty face. Hermione did the same and dropped back into the soft earth under a long sigh.

"Okay, you won", she admitted a moment later, and he put down his gun and looked at her. Her appearance had suffered at least as much as his own in the last hour, for besides all the green splashes of color she was over and over full earth, her wild curly hair was streaked with green strands and she also looked quite damaged. A noticeable scratch on her forearm caught his attention.

"Maybe we should patch you up first", he mumbled, but she had understood him and was following his gaze, which was still on her arm. 

"That's nothing", she grinned as she looked at her war wounds and smiled. And then she looked directly at him and her smile was now completely his. Draco swallowed. "Thank you, Malfoy. I don’t know, when I last felt so excited. That was great!"

"Maybe you should reconsider yesterday's comment about leaning out the window, huh?" He tried. He really tried, but he didn’t really succeed. He didn’t manage to put on his arrogant mask, and if he was not mistaken, Granger would read his face, anyway. Why should he deny, that he enjoyed this date, or whatever one might call this surprising event between them? To hell with all the bullshit about Pureblood, Mudblood, Slytherin and Gryffindor stuff.

"No, I was told not to apologize for what I meant at the time. So I’m playing by the rules, Draco." His heart swelled. In that very second, he simply knew, that he had a huge problem and could do nothing, but nothing at all, about it. He had been trying all the time to reconcile the image of those Granger, whom he had come to know through her messages and now also in person, with the annoying, know-it-all girl with the bird's nest on her head, but he didn’t succeed. This Granger here was different. Maybe it was him, who had changed, who knew for sure?

"Touché", he replied quickly, so as not to have to deal further with his thoughts. That was grueling and unnecessarily strained his nerves. Then, in a flowing movement, he then rose from the ground and held out his hand to Hermione, who grabbed it without hesitation. "Let's go, I'm sick of defeating you." And in fact, he knew it was she, who had brought him to his knees.

 

«««

 

  
"Where are we going?" Hermione wanted to know some time later, as they walked leisurely through the less crowded alleys of London. They were outside the city center and she was furtively watching Draco out of the corner of her eye and wondering, how a human could manage to look perfect, even when carrying a few boxes full of Asian food and remains of red paint in the hair. 

The Scourgify spell had done the rest, but the stubborn splashes of color hadn’t been completely removed either. Hermione was surprised, that it didn’t seem to bother him at all. She would have considered him more picky and somehow ... dirt-allergic. He actually managed to surprise her all the time. If she was completely honest with herself, then she had suspected that Malfoy would invite her into an expensive restaurant, one where there might have been the best steak in all of London, or anything else out of the ordinary to make an impression. The really funny thing about it, however, was, that at the moment he left the biggest impression on her, dirty and with fast food in his hands.

"We're already here", he didn’t really answer her question and stopped in front of a pretty Victorian building with a pale blue paint. She loved this style of architecture and especially liked this corner of London. She hadn’t been to Notting Hill often, but the area was certainly one of the most beautiful in the city.

"This is where you live?" Hermione did not even try to hide her obvious surprise. She hadn’t expected him to take her home with him, and frankly, she didn’t know what to think about it, either.

"For two years now." Draco pulled his wand out of the inside pocket of his jacket and tapped it once against the front door, which also jumped open, accompanied by a soft click, while he laboriously balanced the cartons of food in one hand. Hermione took it from him and walked slowly behind him as he guided her down a narrow hallway that ended right in a spacious living room. "You can just put the food down on the table in front of the sofa", he said and was already digging around in a drawer in the open kitchen next to the living room. She did as she was told and as soon as she had put the boxes down, she began to look around with interest. Bright, modern furniture combined with antique pieces, minimalist furnishings but still cozy. Huge sofa, oversized Muggle TV, no pictures on the wall, but a big silver Slytherin crest on the wall above the sofa, which made Hermione laugh out loud.

"Are you serious about the crest?", she still giggled as he returned with cutlery, glasses, and a bottle of wine, putting everything to the red-painted boxes of "Hong Lee" on the tiny coffeetable. 

"Granger, this is called house pride. Just because you Gryffindors have no reason... - HEY! " Outraged, he now looked down on Hermione, who had just given him a well-placed blow on the upper arm.

"Watch what you say!", she said, a half-serious warning, and hesitated briefly when Draco let himself sink to the floor between the sofa and the table. 

"Granger, what are you waiting for? The food is getting cold and I'm worried that you'll become aggressive when you're hungry", he said casually, already bothering with the wine bottle. A bottle of wine that looked like the equivalent of Hermione's monthly rent, mind you, but then she remembered, with whom she was spending her time here and shook her head. He had almost managed to make her forget, who he was and how different they actually were. But one thing had to be conceded to him without envy, he knew exactly what he was doing. Not that he was overthrowing compliments around or anything, no, it seemed he knew exactly what kind of date she would like and Draco Malfoy without the tyrannical, arrogant pureblood attitude was a surprisingly pleasant company. With a grin, Hermione kicked off her shoes and dropped onto the fluffy gray carpet next to him.

"What's so amusing?", Draco wanted to know, while he shoved one of the boxes in front of her and handed her a fork. 

"Everything, somehow. I didn’t expect you to take me to paintball and then I would sit on your floor and eat fast food", she smirked. "You have a nice apartment, by the way." Apparently, she had pronounced her last words with too much amazement in her voice, because Draco now raised an eyebrow and looked at her reproachfully.

"How did you think I’d live? In a damp dungeon with a few torches on the walls?"

"No, of course not", she hastened to say quickly, but to be honest, just too clear a picture of Malfoy Manor flickered in her mind. He seemed to be able to guess her thoughts and snorted in amusement.

"Bon appetit, Granger."

 

«««

 

"I can’t eat any more bite!", Hermione moaned and closed her eyes as she dropped backwards against the seat of the sofa. Draco watched her for a moment, not thinking for the first time on that memorable day, that Granger had changed. Back then, at Hogwarts, she had always made an almost rushed impression on him. Today, however, she looked downright relaxed and he wondered, what might be the reason. Had she changed that much? Or was it himself, who now had a different view of things? Possibly, because where else did those strange thoughts come from, when he looked at Granger?

"What is it?", she tore him from his thoughts and looked at him suspiciously. He wished she would look at him differently. But how exactly, that did he have to find out for himself.

"Nothing. You look relaxed", he voiced his thought from before, and with these words he got up and gathered the half-empty cardboard boxes and cutlery from the table to carry it over to the kitchen, where, to be honest, he hadn’t cooked himself even once. He could feel her gaze resting on him and made the mistake of looking directly into her eyes, which sparkled at him thoughtfully.

"Yeah, strangely, I feel that way. Thanks for the day, Malfoy. I’ve really had fun ... for a long time."

Crap. He was so screwed. Draco knew it was a stupid idea, to date Hermione Granger. He had done many stupid things in his life, he could not deny that, but none had felt so right at the same time. He was overwhelmed with all this. But he could as well admit, that he was attracted to her because it didn’t change anything about the fact. And he had no idea why. With all his confused thoughts, he seemed to have missed answering her and now cleared his throat as he slowly went back to her, and as she sat on the floor, squeezed between the table and the sofa, he looked down at her.

"So, it's up to you now, Granger, to decide if you want me to bring you home or to stay here, so that we can have some more fun." He just could not help but put on a dirty grin and wiggle his eyebrows what had the desired effect, because immediately her facial features fell apart in the most glorious way and Draco laughed at her indignant "What?", as he walked the two meters over to the TV, opened one of the drawers of the cabinet on which the TV stood and pulled out two controllers from his game console. Admittedly, he had learned to appreciate and love a lot from the Muggle world in recent years. Even if mobile phones were clearly not one of them. And maybe he should reconsider that, if he thought about it now.

“Here!” Grinning, he threw her one of the controllers and Hermione caught it perplexed. "Of course, only if you dare to lose again against me."

"Are you serious? You have a Playstation? What the hell did you do to Malfoy the Muggle hater?"

"He has not existed for a long time. Some things are really practical", he just shrugged his shoulders and turned on the TV.

 

«««

 

  
"That’s just not possible! I grew up with muggles and should beat you, not the other way around!", Hermione exclaimed annoyed some time later. Meanwhile, they sat comfortably on the sofa, the wine bottle was emptied to the last drop and Hermione felt pleasantly exhilarated. They had spent the last two hours playing their way through various video games and in every single one of them, without exception, Malfoy had beaten her. Her view of the world was completely broken, and it might never be possible to reconstruct it again. Well, maybe it was partly because she just could not concentrate enough, because Malfoy brought her completely out of the blue, just by being there. He was too close. Way too close! After the last push she had given him, because he had rammed her off the racetrack with his car, he had simply moved even closer to her and now her thighs were touching. Also, if that was not a big deal, it almost took her out of her mind. The one, who always tried to whisper to her, that it was Draco Malfoy sitting next to her, but it was amazingly easy to ignore that annoying voice in her head. Her leg tingled where his leg touched her, and she could not deny that nervous fluttering in her stomach, which usually came up when she looked at him stealthily from the side once more. The urge to lean against him and inhale his scent grew minute by minute to an insatiable need inside her, and Hermione hoped, that he wouldn’t notice that.

"You're just not an real opponent, Granger", he sighed theatrically, tossing his controller on the seat beside him while the image on the TV showed Hermione's broken car, just about to torch. 

"Is there anything you can’t do? I could use a sense of achievement", Hermione grinned as she also put her controller aside and looked at him. Which was a mistake, as she had to notice immediately, because his eyes captivated her and again she realized, with a beating heart, that he was too close and yet not close enough.

"I'm a very miserable kisser", Malfoy responded now, his eyes sparkling with amusement. Her heart skipped a beat, only to stumble away afterward.

"Really? Why can’t I believe you?", she breathed and tried at the same time to control the chaos inside her, but in vain.

"Oh, yes, you'd be surprised ..." His voice was not quite as firm as it had been a few seconds before, and then, without letting her speak again, he put his lips on hers. Hermione died a thousand deaths at that moment, only to rise from the ashes and fly away. A longing, she had not known before, that seemed to be anchored deep inside her, was pulled to the surface by Malfoy's mouth on hers, and sloshed over Hermione like a mighty wave, from which she leaped, without further notice to think, to be carried away. All thinking was suddenly unimportant. A jolt went through her body as he brought his right hand on the back of her neck to draw her closer and with a vehemence that she had never thought herself capable of, she returned his kiss. 

The unbridled desire, that ran through her guts like molten lava, was completely unknown to her, and she was more than surprised at the feeling, that the kiss evoked in her. She couldn’t think straight anymore. Neither the moment she rebelled and jumped at him, nor the moment he pulled her onto his lap and deepened the kiss. Hermione got lost in the feeling of his hands on her back, in his smell and her whole universe fell crashing down only to explode again just a few seconds later. She had lost all sense of time, but she did not care if seconds, minutes, or even decades had passed. All that mattered was, that she was here with him. She felt whole. No longer lost, no longer incomplete and at that moment she gasped in surprise, realizing that she hadn’t felt so alive for two years. It was almost too much for her.

She barely noticed, that Malfoy had detached himself from her and held her face with his hands. Only after a few seconds, when he looked at her with big, questioning eyes, did she realize, that something was wrong.

"Granger ..." His voice was deep and penetrating and only slowly did she realize, what was going on, the moment he ran his thumb of his left hand over her cheek and she felt the tears he wiped from her face. He seemed to struggle for composure as much as she did. Damn, she cried and did not even know why or how that could happen. She was overwhelmed, and that in every possible way. "…I said I was a miserable kisser, but it couldn’t have been that bad", he joked, not tired of removing the salty liquid from her face.  Despite his words, there was something understanding in his gaze, as if he knew exactly what it looked like inside her and that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. She had to put her hand in front of her mouth, so she wouldn’t sob out loud. Here eyes were burning and she tried in vain to hold back the tears, which was a pointless endeavor. Inconveniently, Hermione now climbed down from his lap and staggered to the end of the sofa where she had left her bag, which she now pressed against her body like a rescuing anchor.

"I ... well ...", she found no explanatory words for this situation and the fact, that Malfoy simply waited and sat on the spot, did not make things any better "... excuse me for a moment", she finally brought out in a shaky voice and fled straight to his bathroom, although she was much more inclined to run away completely from it at the moment. 

Here she sat, on the edge of Malfoy's bathtub, staring at the black-tiled floor at her feet. Her tears did not want to dry up and after only a few minutes she was extremely annoyed. She couldn’t explain her emotional outburst to herself and named herself an idiot for failing to bring her emotions under control. She had screwed up everything. Even as she vigorously ran her hand over her eyes, she fished with the other for her cell phone in her purse and once breathed in and out again. All day long she hadn’t wasted a thought on it and now, that she became aware of it, she was even more confused about it. Just, what should she write to him? How could she grab her confused thoughts and words? Sighing, Hermione unlocked the display, hoping she would come up with something.

 

«««

 

  
  
Meanwhile, Draco was still sitting there, slapping his hand through his hair. It had not gone quite the way he had imagined, but he had not imagined anything, if he was honest with himself. Basically, the plan had been to just spend a day with Granger and that was it. That everything had somehow gotten out of control and that he had thrown his plans to take her out for dinner in some restaurant and brought her home instead, had not actually been planned, but it had seemed more appropriate to him. And for a long time, he had not spent such a relaxed and fun day, because he had to admit, that Granger was a good company ... at least as long, as you didn’t kiss her and make her cry. Draco sighed deeply as he got up and cleared the empty wine bottle and glasses from the coffee table into the kitchen. He already knew, that her outburst had nothing to do with him, at least he really hoped so, but he was not an idiot either. He had noticed her looks very well and he was well aware, about her physical closeness. Even though he couldn’t quite explain it yet, he knew that he was attracted to her, and not just in a simple, physical way. And tat admittedly scared the shit out of him, but on the other hand not at all. It was crazy.

Slowly he walked down the hallway and stopped at the door of his bathroom, but he didn’t hear the slightest sound and he wondered for a moment, if he should be worried, but then he shook his head and continued towards his bedroom. Just to have something to do, he fished a pair of sweatpants out of his closet and swapped them with his jeans, which seemed too tight to him, since Granger had sat on his lap.  
His eyes fell on his cell phone, lying there uselessly on his nightstand, and he hesitated for a long moment before taking it. He just knew that Granger would write. If he had any certainty about anything by now, it was, that she wrote mainly when she was off track. Not only, but mostly. And he didn’t have to wait too long, because he had just arrived back in the living room and had made himself comfortable on his sofa, since the vibrating alarm was buzzing for a new message and for a brief moment, a strange kind of jealousy came over him. Jealousy, that she confided something to her dead friend, something she could not tell him. Something that maybe even had to do with himself!

With mixed feelings, he opened his messenger and if he had been confused so far, there were no real words for the feeling, that spread inside him after reading Granger’s message.

 

_I have been happy for a long time now. Can you imagine that? No? Me neither, but it’s true. Today was the first day in two years, that I didn’t think about you all the time. And you know what? I don’t even feel guilty about it. Strange, isn’t it?_

Draco frowned as the next messages arrived. 

  
  
_Oh God, he's definitely thinking, that I am not right in the head. I don’t know what's wrong with me. Will I always cry in the future, when I'm actually happy? Does that mean, I might never be happy again?_  
  
_I totally screwed up ... I don’t know, how I’m ever gonna face him again. I'm about to leave my shoes behind and climb out of the bathroom window. But seriously ... what do I do now? Shit, I'm really an idiot. :(_

 

Ok, enough of that. Determined, he threw the phone on the shelf under the small table and rose from the sofa to walk vigorously to the bathroom. Carefully he tapped his knuckles against the white-painted wood and slowly counted to five, but there was no reaction from the other side.

"Granger, you can’t stay in there forever, you know that, right?" He didn’t really expect an answer, but he also didn’t expect, that the door lock now made a clicking sound, which he considered as a sign to be able to enter. Slowly he opened the door and saw Granger sitting directly on the edge of his bathtub, like a heap of misery, turning her wand between her fingers and avoiding his gaze. "Get out of there, that doesn’t look very comfortable", he said, finally getting her attention. She took a deep breath, put her wand in her handbag and rose slowly before she pushed past him while he held the bathroom door open for her.

"I'll go better then. So, thanks for the nice day Malfoy and - "

"Are you kidding me?" 

"Excuse me?", Hermione asked perplexed as she paused and turned to face him. 

Draco shook his head. 

"You don’t think I’ll let you go anywhere now?", he replied resolutely and before she could protest, he had grabbed her by the hand, taken her bag and put her back on the sofa. With wide eyes she watched him as he sat down to her and grabbed the remote control. A few moments later, he had already found a movie, which he was not interested in at all, but a little distraction could certainly not hurt her. And frankly, neither him.

"I'm really sorry, I don’t know what was going on and somehow ... well ...", she started and kneaded her hands nervously. She still avoided his gaze and Draco was doing what he thought, was the only right thing to do at that moment.

"Come here, Granger." With these words, he raised his arm, and as she made no move to follow his request, he certainly drew Hermione to him and let himself sink deep into the sofa cushions with her. He noticed exactly, how her whole body tensed and sighed, for he himself was not exactly an expert in interpersonal relationships. "It's all good." But something told him, that maybe ‘good’ wasn’t the right word, to summarize all this.

"You've changed", Hermione said after a while, in which they had both stared silently at the moving images on the TV, and Draco had begun to paint with his hand circling patterns on her upper arm. Granger's head rested on his chest and he regretted a bit, that he could not see her face.

"I think everyone changes. Sort of. We've grown up, that's all."

"Growing up is exhausting", she sighed, and Draco secretly agreed. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thank all of you so much for the kudos and for the reviews. I really hope my translation was okay. Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

It was too bright and it was warm. Those were the first thoughts that crossed Hermione's mind, when she opened her eyes and needed a few minutes before she knew where she was. And most of all, by whom she was. Slowly, the fog cleared in her head, and when she realized that she was lying here on Malfoy's couch, and apparently spent the night with its owner arm in arm, a jolt went through her body, that woke the sleeping blonde underneath her.

"Shit", she said, not quite subtly, while she moved a bit away from him. Draco, meanwhile, didn’t seem particularly willing to get up, for he just was grumbled something incomprehensible, wrapped his arm and one of his long legs around her body and snuggled himself back into one of the pillows without opening his eyes. "Malfoy, we fell asleep", she now tried to keep him awake, while at the same time controlling the loud beating of her heart, which tampered against her chest. 

"And?", She heard his muffled voice and Hermione wanted to laugh, but somehow, she didn’t feel like laughing at all at the moment. The urge to run away, fought within her for supremacy with the desire to give herself completely to the warm, tingling sensation that had suddenly taken possession of her. What was wrong with her?

"I didn’t tell Luna, she's probably worried about where I am!" And that wasn’t even a lie, because they usually told each other, if someone didn’t come home, which in Hermione’s case only happened, when she decided at short notice to stay at the St. Mungo because she had to put in a double shift.

"She knows who you're with. Besides, I sent a patronus last night after you had fallen asleep", Draco grumbled, but made no effort to even raise his little finger, or even open his eyes. Hermione was startled and a small smile spread on her face. Actually, she would have thought, that now everything would be weird. Her behavior yesterday evening, the fact that she was lying on the couch with Draco Malfoy ... but oddly enough, it didn’t feel weird at all to lie here with him.

"Thanks, that was very nice", she said softly, allowing herself to relax a little in his embrace. Draco, on the other hand, smiled but still had his eyes closed, which greeted her, so she could look at him uninhibitedly.

"I'm not nice, Granger. Stop saying that all the time, or I'll have to make you cry again." Hermione could not gasp as quickly as he had started to move them around with a jerking motion, so that he now lay half on top of her. In the meantime, he had also managed to open his eyes and winked sleepy at her. "Good morning", he whispered, giving her a gentle kiss on the half-opened lips, but this time Hermione didn’t fall directly into a chaos of emotions, but it was only the butterflies in her stomach, that everyone was talking about and their excited fluttering she had not felt for a long time.

"That wasn’t because of you...", she almost whispered, after he had detached himself from her and now smirked cunningly.

"I know. I lied, I'm a great kisser, so it couldn’t be because of that." With a twinkle in his eye, Draco rolled away from her again and maneuvered himself into a seated position, while Hermione closed her eyes for a moment and sent a quick ‘thanks’ to the heaven, for that he was doing exactly, what she didn’t want to succeed in, namely, to create a harmless and relaxed atmosphere. Nevertheless, there was something, that needed to be discussed urgently and so little knowledge she had in the data, so little did she know about such things. Was this just fun for him? Did he do that with any of the women he was with, or was there really something between them? How was she supposed to ask him without being a complete idiot? She sighed.

"I'm going to the bathroom and then make us coffee", his yawned words reached her ears and when she opened her eyes again, he had already disappeared on the way to the bathroom. Slightly oblivious, she sat up now, reached for her bag, which stood on the floor at the foot of the L-shaped sofa and first straightened her hair and then her completely ruined makeup with two quick spells, so that she looked at least halfway socially acceptable again. She quickly grabbed her cell phone and wrote a message to Ron, as she had always done during the last few weeks, when she was worried about anything, but today it seemed particularly hard. Nevertheless, she tried to hurry before Malfoy came back and might ask her, what she was doing.

 

_Rrrrrrrrrrrr ...._

Hermione was stunned when she heard the vibration of a cell phone, just as she had sent her message. The source was quickly found, and she was amazed, when she spotted the small mobile phone on the counter below the coffee table. Who would have thought, that Malfoy had a cell phone? But she had no time to worry about that, because not everything had fit into her first message. With a smile on her lips, she typed the remaining words into her device.

_Rrrrrrrrrrrr ...._

 

All of the color instantly faded from her face instantly, and with a feeling somewhere between fear and nausea, she stared at Malfoy's phone, which vibrated again the second she sent her second text message. 

"What the hell...", she whispered into the quiet room and a horrible premonition crept into her. Hermione didn’t know where that feeling came from, but a small voice in her told her, that something was not right at all. No, that could not be at all, she tried to calm down, but she simply did not want to succeed. With trembling fingers, she opened Ron's contact in her phone book and pressed the green button, only to strike her hand in front of her mouth less than three seconds later.  It rang. Malfoy’s cell phone rang and now she threw all her principles over board and grabbed his phone from under the table.

If she had had to describe, what was going through her mind in that second, she would have failed miserably, because all of a sudden there was just a sense of emptiness and numbness in her. It literally tore the ground from under her feet and Hermione wanted to scream, laugh and howl at the same time, but instead she stared hypnotized at Draco's cell phone in her right hand, on which her own number flashed wildly towards her. 

"No...", she breathed and could do nothing but look for an explanation for this grotesque discovery, but there were none.

"Granger" Malfoy's occupied voice came from seemingly far away to her ears and slowly, very slowly she raised her head and looked directly into the grey eyes, in which a storm was raging like she had never seen before. 

"What have you done?" She croaked, not sure if she just had a nervous breakdown or not, but it felt like something was breaking inside her. It was probably her heart. Again.

"Let me explain it to you." Malfoy gesticulated wildly with his hands as he approached her, but she immediately retreated from him. He couldn’t get too close.

"Go away!" came life in Hermione now, right at the moment, his damned phone stopped ringing. 

"Hermione, listen ..." The fact, that he called her by her first name, made her listen for a millisecond, but even that couldn’t stop her anymore. In a total rage, she jumped up and now backed away from him with a big step, as he was still approaching her. Luckily, that finally stopped him, and with a wild beating heart and a sudden raging fury in her stomach, she stood there, staring at him in disbelief.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" She cried, and as if her scream had been the missing valve, tears began to flow as well. "YOU HAD NO RIGHT TO DO THAT!"

"I know, but I had no idea-", he started slightly desperately, but she interrupted him. 

"No, indeed you have no idea. You have not the slightest idea, how I feel and what you have done!", she sobbed and buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to look at him anymore. It hurt. More than she ever thought possible, and Hermione felt betrayed and humiliated. 

_Stupid , stupid , stupid!_

She was startled and flinched, when two strong arms closed around her and held her, but she had no strength to defend herself against him. For the moment, she let it happen.

 

«««

 

Draco was paralyzed. He hadn’t thought much of it, when he heard the annoying ringtone (Bethany had obviously done a great job of annoying him as much as possible) of his cell phone, but the moment he saw Granger sitting there, thunderstruck as she sat there, stunned, staring at his cell phone in her own hand, he realized, that the 'worst case' had occurred. And now he was standing here, holding a completely apathetic Granger in his arms, certain that he deserved the pain he felt. Of course, he should have told her, he knew that by now, but apparently, he had not changed a bit - Congratulations, he was still an ass.

"I'm sorry, Granger, I didn’t want you to know it that way…", he tried to smooth the waves a little, but she shook him off and at the same time her wild curly head. 

"Oh, you’re sorry? Well that's nice, that helps a lot now! When did you intend to tell me? In one or maybe two years? Or maybe you wanted to travel back in time with a time-turner to report earlier?" He had not known, that she could be so sarcastic and now, he stepped a little further away.

"I CAN’T HELP, that I accidentally got Weasley's old number and that you still communicate with him, two years after his death!" He replied slightly pissed, staring into her eyes, which now sparkled back in anger. 

"I do not still communicate with him, but only for two weeks! And anyway - leave Ron out of this! ", she hissed now and crossed her arms in front of her chest, defending herself, after she had wiped the half-dried tears from her face angrily.

"And it’s not my fault, that your messages ended up with me! I only found out, when I saw you on your date in the Onyx, damn it! "

"And why were you there that night?" He was silent and apparently the answer was enough for her, because she stomped past him, collected her cell phone and her handbag from the sofa, slammed his own phone in front of his chest and stepped energetically into her shoes. 

"Granger, come on, don’t just go now, that's childish." He probably shouldn’t have said that, because she gave him a look that could just as easily have been of a basilisk, as deadly as it was.  "Childish?", she ranted, one octave too high and took another step towards him. He wasn’t sure if maybe he shouldn’t be afraid of her. Where was his wand right away? 

"You get messages from someone you don’t know and just read them, without even thinking about enlightening the person? Then you realize that it's me and ... " She faltered and Draco noticed the change in her gaze, as she most likely tried to figure out, exactly why he had acted that way.

"The messages did something to me, Granger! Yes, I was curious at first. Since when is this a crime? But since I knew it was you... I don’t know, I felt the need to spend time with you. I didn’t plan it, it just  _happened!_ " Slowly but surely, he no longer knew what to say about the whole thing. It was desperate.

"The messages wasn’t for you!" 

"I'm not stupid, I know that. But they came to my phone. I don’t believe in fate and all that crap, but we wouldn’t be standing here, if all of that hadn’t happened", Draco snorted, throwing his arms up in a theatrical gesture. Hermione, on the other hand, just shook her head and ran her hand through her hair.

"I don’t even know what _this_ …" at these words, she waved her arms between them both back and forth "…means." 

"Guess what! I don’t know either. But I _like_ you, Granger! " His words were almost soft at the end. "But you have to get here and now, otherwise it won’t work out! "He now tried to put his anger, which this whole confused situation had caused in him, into the last corner of his mind. He didn’t have time for that now.

"I'm in the here and now", Hermione said quietly, and he laughed dryly. 

"Don’t tell such bullshit." Well, that could have been said nicer, but what for? The truth had to hurt sometimes. But Granger didn’t look as if he had really hurt her with his words, because her eyes narrowed into narrow slits and accusingly pointed to his hand, where he still clutched his cell phone since she had almost brutally forced it on him before.

"Then read the fucking messages, that doesn’t belong to you!" And without wasting any more words on him, she whirled around on her heel and three seconds later had already loudly disappeared through his apartment door, which crashed into the lock. 

Here he stood, staring stunned after her. He didn’t expect her to buzz of that way. He was bushed when he slumped down on his sofa and rubbed a hand over his face. Whatever had just happened here, was certainly not planned. But alright, he was actually to blame for that himself, and if he was particular about that, then he was saved by the bell. The message icon with the small "2" on his display seemed to taunt him, and for a moment he wondered, if he shouldn’t just take this piece of shit and throw it against the next wall. But of course, he unlocked instead the phone and opened the two messages, Granger obviously must have sent before.

 

_No message has been as difficult for me, as this one. I know you'd never be mad at me about that, but it still hurts to write you this. Stupid, I know, I write here only with myself and you have no idea, but I like the thought, that you somehow get to know it. Ron, I think it's time to let you go. I haven’t been able do it for two years, and then of all people Draco Malfoy comes along and manages to make me feel alive again. If that's not pure irony..._

Draco swallowed. He didn’t want to open the second message, to be honest he was fucking scared of it, because this one looked like Granger was right, and she had actually arrived in the here and now.

 

_I have no idea whether he likes me or not, but I’d like to find out. Because I like him, more than likely would be good for me. Isn’t life crazy? But that's exactly what I want! A crazy, happy life and finally I see this again in front of me. Thank you for being a part of it, but now it’s time to let go ... Take care of yourself, wherever you are._

Fuck. He had screwed up all along the line.

 

«««

 

It didn’t get any better. Not even after a week, in which she had done nothing but call in sick, lie in her bed at home, and stare at the wall. If she hadn’t had Luna, she might have starved to death, but now and then she managed to make herself a cup a coffee and besides, she had read two pages of a new book, but to be honest, she had no idea what was written there. Her thoughts took her back to Draco Malfoy, over and over again, and Hermione wasn’t sure, if this condition was so much better now than it had been three weeks ago, when she opened the damn box.

Another Muggle proverb said: After rain comes sunshine. Hermione, however, didn’t see any sun in her cloudy sky and she wondered, if she hadn’t jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. Emotions were a weird, intangible and deceitful thing, because they could destroy you and that, without the slightest chance of intervening.

Almost a week ago she had fled from Malfoy's apartment and it seemed like an eternity to her. She missed him and she couldn’t rationally explain why, because they had only spent a day together and yes, they had kissed and it was true, that she really liked him and was attracted to him and... well, maybe this point could be explained rationally. He had hurt her anyway. It wasn’t even because he had received and read the messages from her, but because he had kept it from her. But increasingly in the last few days, Hermione caught herself in the process of her rage on him getting a few, small cracks and starting to crumble, because if she was completely honest with herself, then she probably wouldn’t have acted differently in his place. No, she couldn’t really blame him. 

The messages, she had received from him in the last few days was probably also to blame for this. Although she almost fell off the chair in fright at the first one, Ron’s name still stood there as the sender. But in the meantime, she had at least once managed, to delete his name, so that only the number stood there. Grumbling, Hermione picked up her cell phone, which, although she didn’t really want it, was always ready to hand on her nightstand. She didn’t know, how many times she had already called his messages, but it wasn’t important either. She didn’t intend to write him back.

 

_Granger ... I'm sorry. Call me…_

 

_Hell, yeah it was not okay, but just running out my apartment was just as bad._

 

Then, two days later: _would you please answer?_

 

_I don’t know how you dealt with that. Writing and not getting an answer is really fucked up!,_ came on Wednesday night.

 

_Okay, I got it. You don’t want to talk to me. But I’d like to talk to you._

 

She almost laughed at the message the day before yesterday: _You have no idea how much I hate this phone..._

 

Even as Hermione went through the text messages for the hundredth time, a new one arrived and in surprise she dropped the phone, but it didn’t get far and quickly she had it again in her hand to open the message, which was much longer than all the others before. 

 

_I said I don’t believe in fate. But, you know what? Maybe that's just it. Maybe it was fucking fate, that I got this number and we met again after all these years. Who knows... But it doesn’t matter, does it? You don’t want to talk to me and that's it, right?_

 

Hermione's hands trembled. No, she didn’t want to talk to him, but basically, she wanted nothing more than to see him. She was torn inside and hated, that her emotional world had gone mad since Draco Malfoy had stumbled into her life. Or her in his.

 

_Anyway, I'm just walking out of the office and will make a detour over the Tower Bridge. It's not the first cell phone I’ve sunk in the Thames. I'm really sorry, I wish it had been different._

No! He could not possibly be serious... Well, she feared, however, that he meant it the way he wrote it, and actually she should be happy now, shouldn’t she? After all, no more messages would come from him.

"Oh, who are you kidding here", she suddenly said to herself and at the same moment jumped up and ran into the bathroom. She looked terrible. Dark circles around the eyes, dull hair and when was the last time, she took a shower? Two days ago? Three days ago? Anyway, she was a witch. Although she couldn’t do much with make-up spells and all that stuff, after a few minutes she managed to look reasonably fresh and no longer as zombie-like as the last few days. She looked at the clock. Damn, it was barely half past five in the evening. The Tower Bridge was known to be a tourist magnet and she wouldn’t be able to apparate directly to the bridge. Of course, she could have just as easily answered him. But let’s face it. What would she write after a week of not answering him? _Hi, how are you? Don’t throw your phone off the bridge?_ No, she had to see him.

"Luna?" Hermione called as she stumbled down the hall, trying to put on her shoes while walking. Where was her roommate?

"Oh, you're leaving?", the melodic voice of Luna suddenly sounded behind her and Hermione had finally managed to wear both shoes and her jacket. She hastily reached for her bag.

"Yes, I just wanted to let you know. I don’t know when I'll be back. I'll send you a Patronus."

"Are you meeting Draco Malfoy? That would be very desirable, because I don’t think it’s any good for you, to keep entrenching yourself at home." Luna, straight as always. "I hope so. Wish me luck!"

 

«««

 

When exactly did his life start to suck? It had been less than a week now and he was in a bad mood. Granger didn’t answer him and probably never wanted to have anything to do with him again. In addition, he felt like a giant idiot because he couldn’t help it and had written her the entire last week over again. Without success. He was truly surprised, that she hadn’t completely lost her mind over the last few weeks.

He felt terrible and the really corrosive thing about it was, he knew he fully deserved it. To top it all off, he had talked to Bethany about this whole story today in his despair and the end of the story had been, that she hadn’t been able to give him any good advice - as a woman - no, she was sitting in front of him, sobbing after his story, which he had really kept relatively short, because, as he had then kindly learned, she was pregnant and this oh so sad story had been the emotional overkill for her.

How Terrific. Truly grandiose! 

Now he had to find a new secretary in a few months. The only good thing was, that maybe he would get around it now and this would be the last phone he had to sink into London's river. And he had no doubt, that he would throw it over the bridge railing. This crap had to stop. And if he had to go personally to Granger (which he hadn’t decided yet), but he wouldn’t write any more messages and hope she replied, just to get even more frustrated because that just didn’t happen.   In a correspondingly bad mood, he took a quick step through London’s inner city, which seemed to be completely overcrowded as always. He liked this big, loud and colorful metropolis, but sometimes, like today, he would wish for a little more solitude and peace. On his way through the historic alleys, he at least bumped into three men in suits with cell phones on their ears. It’s a good thing, he’d be able to get away from this nonsense himself.

It didn’t take long until he had arrived at his destination and for a moment, he did nothing but lean against the railing and stare down at the Tower. He had lived here for so long, but so far, he had avoided all the sights and attractions of this city. Maybe he should take care of it. Blaise once said, that once in a lifetime, one should definitely have gone for a spin in the London Eye. Maybe his buddy was right about that.

Sighing, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it thoughtfully. It had only been a week since he had stood here with Granger, but it almost seemed like an eternity to him. That was a funny thing about feelings, it went through his head. Even if he had never thought it possible, but this stubborn, little Gryffindor had irrevocably settled in his mind and just wouldn’t get out of his head. That was strange, considering that he hadn’t even spent 24 hours with her and basically knew nothing about her, except, that he had hated her before and didn’t do it anymore. On the contrary. 

He wasn’t stupid and there was no point in trying to convince himself otherwise, because Draco had to admit to himself, that he had feelings for Hermione Granger. Feelings, he couldn’t attribute, and which confused him, but they were still there and the fact, that she just didn’t answer him made him angry. Even so far, there was no reaction to his latest message and so, after he had once again looked particularly angry at this stupid thing, he went far and watched with incredible satisfaction as his phone sailed in a high arc through the air and vanished many meters below him in the murky waters of the Thames. But the satisfaction of his act did not last very long. It wasn’t as liberating as he had imagined. Not at all. To be more precise, the opposite was true and for a moment, Draco was about to pull out his wand and get that thing back instantly with a Summoning Charm, maybe somebody could repair it?

"You haven’t really thrown your phone off the bridge!", an amused voice suddenly sounded behind him and he would have recognized it among thousands. She was here! Why was she here? The urge to turn around to look at her was supernatural and he had to summon up all his self-control to continue to look stubbornly straight ahead and especially, when it came to Granger, his self-control was not very good, as he had experienced himself in the last days. "You know, maybe this isn’t a bad idea." She had approached him and now he allowed himself a quick look at her from the corner of his eye. Granger now stood, with her arms crossed in front of her body, right next to him and had her own look thoughtfully directed down towards the water

"Yeah, it's really a lot of fun", he replied monotonously, while everything in him screamed to just take her in his arms. Or grab her by the shoulders and shake her. He was not quite sure, which need was stronger at the moment. Granger, on the other hand, stood there quietly and smiled as she grabbed her own phone out of her purse and concentrated on pressing the tiny buttons. 

"What will it be like, when it's done?", he was curious and leaned a bit in her direction, but just at the moment he could catch a glimpse of the display, she held her hand over the railing and just let go. Almost appalled, he watched the mobile phone, which had disappeared two seconds later into the next wave.

"You're right, a lot of fun!", she said then ironically and grinned at him and Draco could do nothing but stare at her perplexed and shake his head. 

"That was stupid." 

"That wasn't dumber than your action." She shrugged her shoulders. 

"Why are you here, Granger?", he asked cautiously, burying his hands deep in the pockets of his leather jacket, at least to look a little more hardened on the outside than he actually felt. Hermione took a deep breath before answering. 

"Actually, I wanted to stop you from throwing your phone into the Thames, but it was far too fascinating, so I guess I forgot when I watched you. I’m sorry.”

"You could have just written..."  She smiled and shook her head. 

"No, I do not feel like it anymore." She took a half-step towards him and looked at him encouragingly. "Now what?"

Yeah, and now what? That was the question, that also bothered him and to which he knew an answer, but he was not sure, weather it was the one, she wanted to hear.

"Why are you really here?", he asked instead, hoping she would not notice, how nervous her presence made him, but she herself looked as if she was anything but sure, what she was about to say. 

"I ... well...", she started and lowered her gaze. Seconds passed and he almost thought, she wouldn’t talk any further, but she obviously took a heart. "I’ve been thinking about what you wrote." Maybe she had noticed his questioning look and now continued. "Maybe there is something like fate? Why else would we stand here? " He couldn’t do anything about the smile, that had crept into his face at her words, nor could he just stand there and look at her for a second longer. Without further thought, he now closed the remaining gap between them and pulled Hermione into a gentle hug.

"I'm sorry, I really should have told you" he squeezed out, but she just shook her head vehemently and her hair tickled him on his neck. 

"No, it's all good. I'm glad it came to this." Her words were quiet, but he had heard them well and he could not even have described the feeling that took possession of him at that moment, if he had wanted to.

"Does that mean, you’d go out with me again?" He grinned, as he pushed her away a bit to look her in the eyes. She braced and blinked twice before a questioning look settled into her face.

"Do you want to beat me in paintball again?" 

He laughed. "No, I thought we’d take a closer look at the London Eye. What do you think?"

"I think, that you’re indeed the master of dating!" Her face brightened and a joyful sparkle had crept into her eyes. Draco refrained from telling her, that he had not predicted anything else from the beginning.

"Okay, let’s go." And as if he had never done anything else, he put his arm around her shoulders and together they started to move. His cell phone had long been forgotten, but when they had almost arrived at the foot of the bridge, something came to his mind. "Tell me, what did you write before you threw your phone in the water?" The look she gave him then, would have been competition for any Slytherin. 

"Well, probably it was not so clever of you to dispose of yours, now you will probably never know", she chuckled, and his dumbfounded facial expression was probably amusing because then she laughed, while he pouted. "But you know what?", she asked quietly before she stood on tiptoe and gave him a gentle kiss, that almost made him forget what he had even asked. "You'll find out for sure."

Merlin - and if he would! 

 

***FINITE INCANTATEM***


End file.
